A visitor at Yellowstone National Park has gone viral after learning that the park’s world-famous hot springs are, indeed, hot.
In a video captured by @TouronsOfYellowstone on Instagram, a man and a woman ignored another visitor’s warning when they stood by the edge of the Silex Spring, which is located at Yellowstone’s Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail in Wyoming.
The viral clip showed spectators watching the pair as they strayed from the boardwalk towards the basin of the steaming hot spring, which has an average temperature of 174 degrees Fahrenheit (78 degrees celsius), according to the National Park Service.
The woman then crouched on the ground at the edge of the spring to dip one finger into the deadly hot spring, while holding onto her fellow tourist with her other hand. Unsurprisingly, she immediately removed her finger due to the Silex Spring’s scalding temperature.
“Hot! It’s very hot!” she could be heard saying, as the man recording the tourists simply remarked: “Stupid.”
In the caption, the cameraman recalled the conversation he had with the tourists before they defied park rules by testing the hot spring’s water. He wrote that he “would have called these people in,” but he couldn’t find a ranger and didn’t have cell service.
“I told him that was a bad idea and they shouldn’t get off the boardwalk. His response was ‘whatever man,’” he explained. “So I hit record.”
The video was then shared to @TouronsOfYellowstone, which is dedicated to posting amusing clips of the “moron tourists” who visit the US national park. In the comments, fellow Instagram users didn’t hold back their thoughts on the reckless tourists.
“‘It’s hot!’ If only there was a sign telling them that! Since the steam and boiling water wasn’t enough,” one person sarcastically wrote, while another said: “The person who touched the water shouted ‘it’s hot’ afterwards as if the f***ing steam didn’t give it away. I wonder if she ever touched a hot stove as a kid?”
“I wish people understood that it’s not just about the risk their [sic] making of their own lives, but they’re also interfering with a delicate ecosystem,” noted someone else. “If you can’t enjoy things in a look but not touch fashion when it’s appropriate, you’re not mature enough to vacation in places like this. Just go to Vegas or something.”
Yellowstone National Park strictly prohibits visitors from touching, swimming, or soaking in hot springs. “Water in hot springs can cause severe or fatal burns, and scalding water underlies most of the thin, breakable crust around hot springs,” reads Yellowstone’s safety page on the National Park Service website.
The agency also noted that more than 20 people have died from burns after entering or falling into Yellowstone’s hot springs. Most recently, a man died in 2016 after he tried to soak in one of the park’s geysers. His body dissolved in the superheated waters before it could be recovered by park staff.
Last year, a human foot inside a shoe was found floating in a hot spring near the park’s West Thumb Geyser Basin.
According to Buckrail, officials at Yellowstone National Park are currently investigating the Instagram video.
The Independent has reached out to Yellowstone National Park for comment.
