Visiting hot springs means enjoying nature, the view and interacting with people - not frying chickens.
An Idaho man has been banned from entering Yellowstone National Park for at least two years after he tried to fry chickens in a hot spring in the park's thermal area.
Park rangers found the man, whose identity has been withheld, Aug. 7 with cooking pots and two chickens in a burlap sack sitting in the hot spring in the Shoshone Geyser Basin region, the East Idaho News reported.
After pleading guilty on Sept. 10 for the charge, including other violations, the man was ordered to pay $1,200 in fines. He will be restricted from visiting the park once he starts serving a two-year probation. Park rangers also cited two others in a group the man had traveled with, the report said.
Yellowstone is home to the largest clusters of active geysers in the world and has more than 10,000 thermal features. It's against park policy to trek outside of these designated hot spring zones or to place anything into the thermal features.
These rules are imposed for the tourists' safety as water in the hot springs can reach burning temperatures and are sometimes highly acidic. According to Yellowstone officials, over 20 visitors have died from severe burns after they fell into hot springs.
Warning signs are clearly visible in most parts of the hot spring area, giving visitors no alibi for violating rules and risking their lives. However, with over 4 million visitors a year, it's not surprising that some may veer off course, intentionally or otherwise.
The hot spring chicken-cooking is not the first incident that took place at Yellowstone. In 2001, a television show host and producer also got into the same trouble for cooking chicken from the park's geyser and showing it live on-air. After receiving flak from the stunt, the show apologized and called it "just plain dumb."
