dumb asses down here are always fucking with gators and paying the price. :-)
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Keeping a safe distance from alligators is the main reason I haven’t come down to visit you and BEP. Between gators, sharks, hurricanes, and migrants from the NE, Florida seems uninhabitable. :-)
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via GIPHY

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So yellowstone folks - educate me here.

I presume the reason we do not walk on the spring is because it would interfere with the algae blooms that give the spring its color?

I mean, to me it looks like a fairly benign, if hot, body of water that probably isn't going to be badly disturbed by human presence. At least not any more so than countless other natural features in the nation that we allow people to go traipsing about. I think of Yosemite in particular as a place just full of stuff where people are allowed to go just about anywhere that won't kill them (and sometimes places that will).

Algae blooms are pretty much impossible to really damage so long as the nutrients that feed them remain in the water. Seeing as how those nutrients are likely coming from deep within the earth, i figure we can't do much to disturb that.

I'm sure I'm incredibly wrong here, I'm just curious as to why I'm wrong and what it is I don't understand.
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I think it's primarily because you can step in the wrong spot and collapse the dirt so that you sink knee deep into boiling water.
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I didn't think it was that hot around the edges; that's why the algae can grow out there (and why it's so blue in the center; extremely hot where it's flowing out, makes it sterile there and thus very blue). In the area where they were walking, I figure you'd just be at 'hot bath' temperatures.

I totally get not wanting a tide of tourists just walking through there, but it seems unlikely to me that these guys could've actually done any real damage. Hell, it seems unlikely to me that they couldn't take a couple of groups out there daily to 'see the spring' and guide them apart from the liability issues associated with taking anyone onto a shifting mud surface.

This just seems like a lot of people are upset about all the damage these guys could've done but I really don't think they could do much; algae's sturdy shit.
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I don't know if it applies in this exact area or not, but presume it does. When I was there a few years ago there were signs saying that the ground was not always what it seemed and you risked serious injury by walking off the paths.

That said, the bison and elk completely ignored the signs and seemed to be fine.
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In almost all cases they weigh a lot less than us and have their weight distributed by 4 legs.
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It's not the damage of one person. If everyone did it the place would be ruined in a week and there would be 100s of people in ER with serious burns. I have lots of cool photos I took there, they sell them in the giftshops there, but I never stepped on anything but grass. If the grass is growing its not hot below it and I wont contaminate the springs. Several of the pools have been stopped up because people threw pennies in the them.
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A huge number of people go to Yellowstone every year. One or two people leaving the path of the popular areas likely doesn't hurt anything. But if thousands of people did it, everything would eventually be trampled to dirt and mud. So instead they create designated paths to contain the impact of thousands of humans to specific areas.

This is just my guess.
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I thought that it was the danger due to the ground being so fragile and unstable around the springs. People think the ground is firm, but break through the crust into the hot water below like a layer of thin ice.
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If the grass is growing I'll consider it. No grass? No way.
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Both groups are Canadians.

Shocker.

There's a reason I fucking hate Canada and it starts with the people!
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I try very hard NOT to look like a tourist.
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I so need to come visit. I'll throw rocks. I'm not scared. We just need to leave the wives at home. Mine might not be happy if I bounce a rock off some dudes dome. :-)
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