Lucky to be alive to serve 4 days and pay $1k
I blame Yellowstone honchos and NPS for allowing rolling Americans into our Parks. It allows too many human tourists easy access to what's left of our backcountry and wildlife. They should permanently close the roads.
36900148246_2490522ec2_o.jpg
Picture source---
https://oilcity.news/community/2019/...c-congestion2/
Last edited by Tipi Walter; 10-08-2021 at 21:24.
The parks are for all Americans, not just hikers. Yellowstone is so large, with so few roads, that hikers can get lots of wilderness hiking in.Originally Posted by Tipi Walter
I'll wager there are a lot more "rolling Americans" than not, and they likely consider the parks to be just as much theirs as anyone else's. You don't have to go far from a road to lose the wheels if you so choose.
Not to mention that many of those visiting in these ways may not be physically able to visit on foot, unlike those who are involved in this forum. Only seems fair that everyone have an opportunity to see at least some of nature, particularly those who may not be able to hike due to circumstances beyond their control.
Agreed. I’d settle for no more new roads.
Let’s just ban everybody from the National Parks and wilderness areas, including hikers.
Quote from the article---
As the grizzly approached much closer than the football-field-length limit for people to approach bears and wolves in Yellowstone, other visitors backed away and got in their cars. Dehring stayed put and kept taking photos, federal prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.
My point exactly---easy rolling access.
Stupid behavior isn’t just from people driving through parks. I’ve seen some pretty stupid behavior from hikers.
Nah, just cars. Feel free to walk, run, skip, crawl, ride a horse/bike (in designated areas), or take your human-powered water vessel of choice.
Never seen a hiker video of bears I suppose? There's been at least one or two posted here.
Plus everybody else except Dehring did what they were supposed to and backed off.
Further your picture is kind of disingenuous. Of course there's going to be a line of cars when several buffalo enter the road. Buffalo do whatever the hell they want!
Yellowstone is bordered by three large wildernesses as well as national forest all around it too. There is a road system in the park, but there are also vast areas without roads.
"Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
Call for his whisky
He can call for his tea
Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan
Whiteblaze.net User Agreement.
I think hikers east of the Mississippi lack perspective on how much wilderness and how wild the public lands are in the west. Hike 15 miles off a Yellowstone road in the Lamar Valley and you’re taken back to the 1800’s. Too often, I see complaints about motorcycle noise, airplane noise and too many people on TN “wilderness” areas. The designation “wilderness” is a political term, wilderness in Yellowstone is real, as are the blizzards, the risks and the experience.
Yellowstone, as all NPs are for multi use for the people.
If you ride your mountain bike in YNP, don’t wear deer antlers, lol.
Being a hiker won't save you from stupidity
People who hike can be just as stupid around bears as can people who arrive in cars.
https://www.nj.com/passaic-county/20...t_milford.html
The problem isn't that people in cars can be stupid -- it's that PEOPLE can be stupid.
The problem with making parks inaccessible for the vast majority of sedentary and obese people unwilling or unable to get out of their cars is that political support for parks and wilderness would plummet. There has to be a balance between protecting wilderness and giving people access to parks or the majority will not support wilderness.
Good point - tourons pay taxes, too.
I spent an entire summer working in Yellowstone and I saw something similar to the image Tipi posted more days than not.
You can get to approximately 1% of the park by road. 99% of the visitors never leave the parking lot or boardwalks. Those numbers may not be exact, but they are pretty close… at least that’s what park literature and local newspapers report. Most visitors are very sane about how close they will get to animals and thermal features. There are always (*ALWAYS*) some who want a little closer, or who feel the need to show a little bravery in a stupid way. They have to chase the wildlife so they get pictures just like they saw on National Geographic, even though the NatGeo photographers showed up every day for 3 months, with $20,000 worth of equipment, to get 20 seconds of amazing footage… they can do that in 10 minutes with their iPhone. Fortunately, rangers travel about, mostly trying to educate.
The image of the bison on the road, I hate getting stuck in those traffic jams, until I look at the smiles on the faces of the people who have come from Ohio and Kansas and Georgia and are seeing a bison or elk or bear or wolf for the first time. Their entrance fees and taxes help cover the costs of bear management and wolf management and putting in safe boardwalks in thermal areas, and the parking lots where you and I park when we follow that wiggly little trail into the backcountry… where they are absolutely sure a bear or a wolf will eat us. And while you can follow that wiggly trail a long ways, when I drive through Yellowstone, or look at the map, there are still areas with no trails, often with signs that say “Bear Management Area, no admittance,” and while I’d like to know what’s over that hill, or in that valley, I know that that’s what’s been set aside for them.
That lady obviously didn’t take that sow seriously. I’m glad they identified her, caught her, and are imposing some sanctions. It is worth saying that that sow, and others, are thought to stay relatively close to the roads because the boar bears will kill their cubs. The boars don’t like the roads, though, they like the better habitat away from the roads. So there are sows that have made it a lifestyle to be near the roads, regularly, where the cubs are safer. This bear is one. She and her cubs are very regularly spotted from the road, and draw large crowds—and people-control rangers, as soon as the rangers find out where she is. She is pretty complacent about people, until, as in this instance, she isn’t. She made her point and went back to eating.
I hate the crowds, but I love the park. I worry for the bears, but the bears are, at least according to current thinking, near the road for their own safety, or the safety of the cubs. The people and their taxes and their entrance fees and the pictures and stories they take home all help to keep Yellowstone bumping along. I believe that having people be able to drive through their park and see bears and bison and pronghorns and bighorns and all their rest will keep the federal government involved in protecting that resource, so even though there are bear jams and bison jams, etc., it’s part of what keeps the park safe. Oh, and that bison jam from the picture, that would probably be a five minute wait, and you would get a few seconds to take some pictures yourself.
Virtually no one reading this would survive very long in a true wilderness on their efforts alone without bringing the trappings of modern society and its industry - places they drive to in the cars they claim to despise so much, hauling their Titanium and Nylon into "the wilderness". There were roads being built to Yellowstone as early as 1870, two years prior to Congress making it the worlds first National Park. There was train service to the edge of the park by 1883. The 300 miles of paved roads in Yellowstone are largely over the same routing as it was when first completed in 1905. While external access roads, improvements, and paving have been done, very little more has been added to the route of the interior road system itself. The only reason we have all our parks is for their preservation, so that The People can visit, see, and enjoy their natural beauty. A large part of the push for making our parks was to prevent these unique natural areas from being sold to private owners, which was the standard procedure for government lands prior to the inception of National Parks. Other reasons included keeping out large scale logging and deforestation, and poaching species to extinction, etc. But the notion of parks ever being intended to be untouched wilderness just for wilderness sake alone, is neither reasonable nor what was intended.
Are some parks being over-visited, aka loved to death? Yes. But the answer to this problem has to incorporate the reality of the world we live in - a reality that includes cars and even people less knowledgeable than most of us regarding proper behavior in these areas. Our focus should be to inform and educate, not ban them from the same enjoyment we wish for ourselves.
Last edited by 4eyedbuzzard; 10-09-2021 at 10:54.
"That's the thing about possum innards - they's just as good the second day." - Jed Clampett
Rules are for honest people. There will always be someone who thinks the rules don't apply to them regardless of the situation. Like was mentioned above, if you dont want to be around people, just go where they are not. I agree with Hosh, out west the NP's are huge its unreal how big they are. We just spent a week in Yosemite and the only time we saw a crowd was when we stopped by Yosemite Village, the store was wall to wall people. But once we got a few miles from there, peace and quite...and smoke.
" 6 bucks and my left nut says we're not going to be landing in Chicago" Del Griffith
True that, but you also have people with disabilities, small children, and elderly.
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