Since I love Yellowstone National Park so much it seemed only fitting to create a page about it.

Pet Peeve

Since it’s been well over a week since my last post I felt it was time for another one. This one is going to be about my biggest pet peeve about visiting Yellowstone National Park. Visitors to the park ignore the park guidelines about the animals and thermal features and then blame the park; it’s staff and often the animals themselves when they get hurt because of their failure to follow the rules.

To fully understand why I get so annoyed about this particular problem I first need to provide you with some background information about the Park itself and then I’ll explain why it annoys me so much.

Lets start with some statistics about Yellowstone:

· “The total of violent deaths in Yellowstone, by nature and by man, 1839-1993, is over 300 hundred.”
· “Injuries from Bison (gorings, tramplings or strikings) usually number between 1-10 per year in the park, and almost always happen because a visitor approaches the animal too closely.”
· Not only is it a problem with the Bison, but all of the animals in the park.
· People ignore the park rules and get to close to the animals and thermal features.

I have visited Yellowstone 13-14 times in my life. It’s a family tradition and we go nearly every year for a week. On every one of those trips I have witnessed stupid behavior by other visitors to the park. For example:

· They ignore all the posted warnings about the park.
· They don’t stay on the trails.
· They walk up to the edge of hot pools and steam vents, sometimes throwing objects into them or touching the water or steam which is just an accident waiting to happen. Like duh!
· I’ve seen people get to close to the animals.
· One year I watched a woman and two small children walk right up to a Bison and pet it. The woman then proceeded to place one child on either side of the Bison; each child placed a hand on the animal and posed while she took several pictures. That was one of the stupidest things I’ve witnessed around the animals.
· On my last trip in the fall of 2006 I watched a man get within 20 feet of a black bear with two cubs. Like hello, are we stupid or what?

I have never understood why people just can’t follow the park guidelines. It’s not that hard to do or a big deal. Especially since the park posts plenty of signs warning people of the dangers of leaving the walkway or trail and of the dangers of approaching wildlife. I don’t understand how people can blame the park for their own stupidity when they ignore the signs and end up hurt because of it.

But hey my real pet peeve? :p I never seem to manage to catch it on film. I mean hey- if you’re going to be that dumb, you deserve to be a youtube star!

Life: 03/20/08 | Posted By: Mariskah | 2 comments | Tags:

Gibbon Falls

It is probably more accurate to say I passionately love Yellowstone National Park. It’s a beautiful place to visit.

The picture in the introduction is of Gibbon Falls. The 80 foot tall waterfall is along the Gibbon River and is located about halfway between Madison Junction and the Norris Geyser Basin. This waterfall is next to the road so there's usually a lot of people stopping to take pictures of it.

On my last trip there was a pink pick up in the parking lot for the waterfall. It was the first time I had seen one that I thought looked good so I just had to take a picture of it. lol

I plan on posting more pictures and information about them later on. For now I’ll just start with this small post.

Life: 03/06/08 | Posted By: Mariskah | 2 comments | Tags: