
A man ventured out to Beryl Spring in Yellowstone National Park/ViralHog
A man who walked out to the vent of Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone National Park might have also dipped his feet into a hot spring near Norris in the park, according to another video that has surfaced.
The 13-second video shows the man sitting on a rock with his back to Beryl Spring, which is located in the Gibbon Canyon of the park about 5.5 miles south of Norris. It shows him putting his socks back on.
The video was shot Friday, the same day another video surfaced of a man walking out to the vent of the Old Faithful Geyser. The man, whose name was not being released by the park, was charged with multiple violations, including being off-trail in a thermal area.
Yellowstone staff could not immediately be reached Wednesday to say whether the man at Beryl Spring was the same man later arrested at Old Faithful.
The latest video was shot by Kelly Kosciuk and released via ViralHog.
"Just as my family and I arrived at the thermal pool, we see this guy cross over the barricades and head straight for the water. Everyone around us was yelling for him to get out and to be careful," said Kosciuk. "He did not look up and make eye contact with anyone. At one point, he took his shoes and socks off and attempted to put his feet in the water. He was behind the barricade for about 10 minutes and then walked back up to the main road/parking area. There was a moment where I was definitely nervous, you never know what people’s intentions are."
While the National Park Service has been stretched thin with staff due to tight budgets despite record numbers of visitors, in a park as large as the 2.2-million-acre Yellowstone it would be impossible to have rangers everywhere to watch for such illegal behavior, said Phil Francis of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks.
“You think about the number of rangers per square mile, it’s pretty hard to be everywhere at once," he said. "If somebody really wanted to do that and avoid a ranger they could do it. Thankfully, most of our visitors follow the rules and regs and we don’t have to worry about them.”
Francis did agree that the Old Faithful area of the park is a high visibility location.
“It seems to me that there would be some way to provide some level of security, and maybe we’ll have to come up with some new ideas for how to monitor places like Old Faithful," he said.
Comments
I'm wondering if they treated this idiot for burns. It's not quite boiling temperatures, but it's plenty hot and that can cause some significant injuries.