Two tourists left the boardwalk at Yellowstone National Park’s largest hot spring, the Grand Prismatic Spring, despite the plethora of signs telling people not to. Multiple guests recorded the women walking on the fragile bacterial mat that surrounds the spring, and now the pair is going viral for all the wrong reasons.
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[RELATED: Tourists Aghast as Bison Drowns in Yellowstone Hot Spring]
“Idiots (influencers) in the wild – National Parks Edition,” wrote lifeofnarsing in his viral Instagram post sharing footage of the women breaking the rules and putting themselves in danger.
Walking this close to a thermal hot spring is illegal in Yellowstone, in part because the ground is thin, and a person could easily fall through into the scalding hot water. Last year, a bison died in the spring in front of appalled visitors. It’s also illegal because these areas house communities of thermophilic microbes that can’t survive trampling.
Watch tourists put themselves in danger at Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring below (or see it here).
Here’s another video of the pair from a different angle:
Header stock image by Noppawat Tom Charoensinphon/Getyy Images
Read more facts about the national parks:
- Great Smoky Mountain National Park
- Rocky Mountain National Park
- Isle Royale National Park
- Big Bend National Park
- Zion National Park
- Voyageurs National Park
- Glacier National Park
- Joshua Tree National Park
- Grand Canyon National Park
- Dry Tortugas National Park
- Yosemite National Park
