Some backcountry travelers in Yellowstone tried to cook two chickens by boiling them in a Shoshone Geyser Basin hot spring/NPS file
Cooking on a backcountry trip in Yellowstone National Park can be challenging, especially when you want to boil a couple chickens. One group solved that problem by placing the plucked birds in a burlap bag and tossing it into a hot spring in the Shoshone Geyser Basin.
As you might imagine, the backcountry ranger who came upon this cookout was not amused.
"On August 7, a ranger received reports of a group hiking with 'cooking pots' towards Shoshone Geyser basin," park spokesperson Morgan Warthin said Tuesday in an email. "A ranger responded and found two whole chickens in a burlap sack in a hot spring. A cooking pot was also found nearby. A group of 10, including one minor, was contacted."
According to Warthin, "three people received citations for foot travel in a thermal area. One of them was additionally charged with a mandatory court appearance."
The park spokesperson had no details on which spring was used to boil the birds, or what became of them. In light of how acidic some of those springs are, it's probably a good thing dinner wasn't served.
U.S. District Court officials at Mammoth Hot Springs could not immediately find the case.
Comments
Ya can't fix stupid. They screwed up a delicate geological balance in that geyser, plus endangered themselves. Not only would dinner have probably not tasted like they thought it would, but what would have happened if the ground was thinner than they figured, with someone falling in? I bet the penalty will essentially be a slap on the wrist.
Of course it'll be a slap on the wrist. They're letting real criminals out of prison these days. There's no appetite for this. Real punishment would be falling in.