By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-30 00:04:46 | Updated at 2024-09-30 03:24:55
3 hours ago
Yellowstone Park's most dangerous threat to visitors has been revealed - and it's not bears or bison.
Since the National Park was established in 1872, two people have been killed by bison and eight by bears, according to the USGS.
But hot springs have proven to be far more deadly, with a total of 22 people killed since 1890.
Indeed, according to National Park Services, hot springs have caused more deaths and injuries than any other natural feature in the park, including wildlife.
Just this month a New Hampshire woman suffered second and third-degree burns after hiking off-trail and falling through the thin geothermal crust near the Old Faithful geyser.
The 60-year-old was hospitalized after coming into contact with 'scalding water' below the surface, park officials said.
The Yellowstone hot springs have proven to be far more dangerous to humans than animals, with a total of 22 people killed
According to National Park Services, hot springs have caused more deaths and injuries than any other natural feature in the park, including wildlife
The unidentified woman is said to have ignored signs warning about the off-limits thermal area near Mallard Lake Trailhead while walking with her husband and dog.
The incident is the first known thermal injury at the park this year.
There are more than 10,000 hydrothermal features in Yellowstone National Park, including hot springs, geysers and mudpots.
Many hot springs in the park exceed 66°C (150°F), and some are hotter than 85°C (185°F).
Even brief exposure to these elevated temperatures can cause severe burns. When a large portion of the body is scalded, survival rates are low.
Tthe first recorded instance of a scalding occurring in the park was in 1870.
Explorer Truman Everts, separated from his companions, survived 37 days in the wilderness before being rescued.
To keep warm, he slept near a hot spring and was scalded by a burst of steam.
According to USGS, Everts' injury is typical of a hot spring incident in that the harm came from the temperature.
While some hot springs are slightly acidic, it is not typically concentrated enough to dissolve body parts.
A tourist suffered second and third-degree burns after hiking off-trail at Yellowstone Park
Since the National Park was established in 1872, two people have been killed by bison and eight by bears, as reported by USGS
Pictured: A hydrothermal event is seen in Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone National Park in 2009. Yellowstone officials say a similar explosion on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, sent tourists running for cover and destroyed a boardwalk.
Around this time last year, a Michigan man was criminally charged with off-trail travel after sustaining burns from the thermal pools in Yellowstone.
In August 2022, Il Hun Ro, 70, of Los Angeles was killed and almost completely dissolved after falling into one.
Only his foot was found, and DNA testing was needed to identify his remains.
In 2021, two people were injured by the hot springs, one of them a 20-year-old woman who was seriously burned after she went into Maiden’s Grave Spring to save her dog, who died from his injuries.
That same year, the Yellowstone-based federal justice system sentenced a Connecticut man to a week in jail and made him pay an $1,000 fine to the preservation group overseeing the park for trespassing on a thermal feature.
In 2000, 20-year-old Sara Hulphers fell into Cavern Spring's boiling waters while hiking through Lower Geyser Basin and died from third-degree burns
That same year, the court banned a Pennsylvania woman from the park for two years, along with two years' probations and nearly $500 in fines, after she trespassed onto the thinly laid thermal grounds that year.
Yellowstone National park has experienced a tourist boom in recent years after the success of the hit TV series starring Kevin Costner.
Pictured: Early visitors at Handkerchief Pool, Black Sand Basin, around 1923
The cowboy drama brought in an estimated 2.1 million visitors and $730 million in tourist dollars, according to a report last year. It also helped contribute to a boom in the state that saw housing prices soar.
But with an increase in tourism comes an increase in accidents.
Webcams around the park have captured multiple instances where ignorant tourists have put themselves in harm's way for a variety of reasons - ranging from wanting to get closer to the wildlife or climbing over barriers to get a better selfie.
An Instagram account titled 'Tourons of Yellowstone' compiles all of the instances in which a 'touron,' the combination of a 'tourist' and a 'mouron', carries out yet another unbelievably stupid charade, defiling the park's rules time and time again.
If anything, the account serves as an example of 'what not to do' as the parks rules and regulations are linked in the bio for its nearly 550,000 followers.
Yellowstone is home to around half the world’s geysers, many of which, experts say, are so astringent that a dip in one would be akin to a swim in battery acid
The account is open to submissions as a way encourage visitors to hold each other accountable.
The largest influx of tourists visit Yellowstone during the height of spring or fall, but the tourons started their delinquency early this year.
'We're already seeing new levels of stupidity this year,' Jen Mignard, owner of the Facebook page Yellowstone National Park: Invasion of the Idiots, told Cowboy State Daily in April. 'I suspect that with even more tourism, we're going to see a lot more really negative actions coming out of the park.'
Several videos show 'tourons' wandering off the designated boardwalk, which is put into place so tourists can observe the hot springs from a safe distance, to get dangerously closer to the geysers.
