No, that’s not a clerical error. All will be revealed
shortly. But let’s set the scene first.
Yellowstone National Park is dangerous. An unwary visitor
could be eaten by a bear. Or fatally gored by a bison. There are plenty of
opportunities to plunge to inadvertent doom from high places, such as the lava
terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs or the cliff edges at the Park’s own Grand
Canyon. And of course there is the option for a scorcher of a demise via the
endless supply of boiling water and steam from the geysers, not forgetting the
volcanic hot spots lurking beneath the surface.
But it would be a travesty to think of Yellowstone as
Beelzebub’s Backyard in all but name. For the thousands of sensible visitors
who take the trouble to make the journey to the far north west corner of
Wyoming, it’s a sightseeing spectacular. Few would need to be told that it is inadvisable
to step too close to a wild animal or a steep drop. And for anyone not quite
tuned into the risks involved in straying off limits on a geyser basin, where
the danger is sometimes more latent than visible, the boardwalks and their
signs ought to bring the point home beyond all reasonable doubt.
Or so we thought…
It did not take long to realise, on our first full day in
the park, that the “selfie” craze had arrived on an industrial scale. I will
simply observe that the vast majority of its perpetrators were tourists for
whom English would not have been their first language, and leave it at that.
What made it so bizarre in a place like Yellowstone, as they poured off the
coaches and homed in on the viewpoints with their weapons of mass observation
primed for attack, is the plentiful supply of scenery that surely cries out for
silent admiration and the occasional well judged photo to preserve the memory.
Ideally, with as little human presence in the frame as possible. How much true
enjoyment of an adventurous holiday destination can seriously be preserved in
hundreds of grinning face smartphone shots is one of those impossible
conundrums. “This is one of me, my other half, and a few more of my friends at
Yellowstone National Park – no idea what that steamy thing is behind me…”
So there we were in the Upper Geyser Basin, heading off on a
late afternoon walk that began on the boardwalks reaching out from the Old
Faithful Inn, hoping to reach Morning Glory Pool and return before the daylight
ran out. On the far side of the Firehole River, looking back towards the Inn
and the eponymous geyser, the photo opportunities are plentiful. A point that
had clearly not been lost on the group of overseas visitors whom we walked past,
as they continued their quest to crowd as much human flesh as possible into
their smartphone screens without completely losing all of the grey mist and the
rocky thermal crust. What was that feature in their immediate foreground, with
the Inn and the most famous of the geysers distantly visible? Oh yes, Dragon Spring,
how very…
But what on earth? Is that really one of them marching out
over the crust, smartphone in hand, towards a crater that has the unmistakable
look of a geyser outlet or a thermal pool? Is he seriously glancing back to
make sure his companions are framing him in a good shot? And are they making
moves to step off the boardwalk too? Yes, yes and yes…
What happened next is something of a blur. I can just about
recall that after the first few seconds of utter disbelief, we combined
frenzied gestures and forceful exhortations to stop them in their tracks and
persuade them to get back on the boardwalk with a degree of considerable
alacrity. Whatever damage their feet may have inflicted on thousand year old
fragile thermal crust in the process, they made it. In a later Facebook post, I
noted that “DANGEROUS!” ought now to have become part of the main culprit’s
limited knowledge of the English language. My wife had the last word: “Dangerous
wasn’t the only thing you shouted.”
Following a few nods and mutterings that we took to be
thanks, we left it at that and decided to put as much distance between us and
them as possible. Had there been a convenient “Report A Blissfully Ignorant
Suicidal Moron” hotline to the Park Rangers within easy reach, we would have
made full use. But with a citizens’ arrest not being a sensible option (is this
available on US soil for one foreign visitor to carry out on another?), we had
little choice other than to draw a line under our near near death experience –
now you’ll get it – and move on. It was at least well worth then making the
trek out to Morning Glory Pool before the blizzards set to work on the way back
to the Inn.
To conclude on a sober note and dispel any suggestion of
exaggeration, here’s a link to a June 2016 fatality at the Norris Geyser Basin,
another thermal wonderland not far from Old Faithful. Key sentence: “Efforts to
recover the body…..were suspended…..after rangers determined there were no
remains left in the hot spring.”
