We have been discussing the growing number of idiots who are leaving graffiti and destroying national and state parks. now, a group of infamous Canadian juveniles who called themselves “High on Life” are under investigation after videotaping themselves water skiing behind an RV on the Booneville Salt Flats. This is an area that strictly prohibits vehicles during periods when the area is wet because of the damage to the area. What is particularly disturbing is that this group has repeatedly violated such rules at national parks with little punishment or sign of reform. We previously discussed how our rules protecting national parks are meaningless due to the lack of enforcement or serious punishment. We need to pursue a formal banishment law for our parks to apply to such individuals.
The racing community is particularly upset with the video because it has canceled its famous Speed Week for two years to protect the Salt Flats in these condition. Since 1985, such use has been prohibited.
After the Salt Flat incident, High on Life went into a restricted area at Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring. They can be seen ignoring restricted signs and stomping around the fragile landscape at the spectacular Grand Prismatic Spring in the heart of Yellowstone and dipping their hands in the large thermal pool. The group has also been denounced for flying drones at Zion National Park, swinging by rope from Corona Arch, jumping a fence at Machu Picchu in Peru and clowning around at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. In other words, these are senseless jerks who videotape insulting and damaging conduct for other senseless jerks to watch.
The past record of ignoring posted signs and rules for park areas undermine a claim that they did not know about the restrictions on places like the Salt Flats.
The initial warrant for Yellowstone listed Charles Ryker Gamble, Alexey Andriyovych Lyakh and Justis Cooper Price-Brown as wanted creating a hazard and walking outside marked boardwalks and trails “in thermal areas” of the park. A further, similar warrant was also issued for the fourth member of the group after his identity was established as Hamish McNab Campbell Cross. The misdemeanors carry maximum fines of $5,000 a person for each offense and the remote possibility of jail time.
The men have been charged with misdemeanors for their actions in Yellowstone but that is obviously meaningless to them as a punishment. While they have since apologized and donated $5,000 to Yellowstone, their conduct demonstrates vividly that Congress needed to ramp up bout enforcement and punishment for such conduct. At a minimum, all of these individual shovel be banished from national parks. While courts can order such sanctions or prosecutors reach plea bargains that include agreements to stay out of national parks, we should have something more formal in place to banish those who would destroy or endanger our national wonders.
Sorry, I must take a different tack here. There is no grant of power in the US Constitution that I can find which authorizes the feds having national parks. The states, on the otherhand, are free to have them and protect them (great jobs program.). I love the beauty of nature too and I am deeply distressed to see this willfull destruction occur. Smythe511 has a great idea for punishing reckless jerks. Can we do that to foreigners?
Thank you, Issacbasonkavich.
I feared I was a lone wolf crying in the wilderness of xenophobia with a touch of Trumpism.
And Steve Groen made the salient point that no one trashes other countries’ treasures like we do, including mass homicide in the process.
smythe511 – the Japanese have a national park that is favorite spot for suicides. They have to go in every so often and clean out the bodies.
These people are foreign nationals. They should be banned from entry into the US.
smythe511
You hit the nail square on the head. They should be sentenced to a substantial period of time working for the betterment of the environment, even if it is digging drainage ditches, by hand. British Columbia had ‘Fire Camps’ back in the sixties where youth were sent to clear the dead wood out of the forests, most often the parks. This was mainly for juvenile delinquent type offenses and possession of pot. Tagging six months onto a person for this sort of asinine behavior, especially relating it directly to the offense, is much more effective than a fine. A fine can be perversely reasoned out of a person’s mind. Six months plus gives the behavior time to sink in.
Just look how perversely reasoned out of the reality of some of those who post on this blog, this particular offense has been.
‘Notice it’s usually people from other countries who don’t give a crap about our national treasures…’
‘I bet these hosers started the horrible fire burning in Alberta.’
The fact that it was foreigners and on top of that Canadians is a godsend to some. Yup Yup.
I don’t think it’s even possible to ban people from National Parks. There typically is not a single, gated point of entry. To get to salt flats you can just hike in.
However, these people are selfish, thoughtless fools. Carving up the salt flats when they are wet leaves long lasting hard furrows in the otherwise smooth landscape. They’re no longer “flats.”
Since these idiots apparently post video of their damaging our parks, then each and every offense should be charged. In addition to fines, they should be sentenced to community service, where they have to pick up a shovel and repair trail, preferably cleaning up the wreckage from similarly minded fools. If their backs are sore enough, they might finally grasp the consequences of their actions. If not, at least they had to pay fines and put in some sweat.
We need an anti bullying campaign for our environment.
Although, in thinking about it, they are doing no more harm to the eco-system then the illegal aliens who cross our southern border.
I don’t think a law banishing people from national parks is appropriate. Neither is a plea bargain which includes a lifetime ban appropriate. People tend to grow up and to exclude them for life seems to me as having only a retributive objective. If you’re going to do that, then perhaps every combustion engine maker and oil and nuclear fuel executive in America (and the list goes on and on) should be banned as well. Ever buried your toilet paper in a national park when you should have carried it out?
Our Congress and presidents certainly have no grounds for passing such legislation. If we’re that POed that people trash our national parks, just think what former Yugoslavians, Ukrainians, Libyans, Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, Afghans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Panamanians, Colombians, Argentinians, and Chileans think of the US actively trashing their countries. If our government can trash whole countries, committing mass homicide in the process, and completely avoid consequence as just another day at the office, we as a people have some moral basis for imposing a lifetime ban against non-violent, 20-something adolescents going to parks? Uh uh.
Fine them, assign to the park service any commercial proceeds of their venture, incarcerate them for up to six months for each incident, and lead by example otherwise.
Carry on.
Dipping your hands in a thermal pool does not show good judgment. Send them back to Canada and restrict their passports.
I bet these hosers started the horrible fire burning in Alberta.
Notice it’s usually people from other countries who don’t give a crap about our national treasures…
Banishment? No! The sentence is supervised work in the park, clearing debris, repairing walkways, removing graffiti, replanting trampled vegetation, long hikes up stony path to mud in walls damaged by pitons, etc., etc. you get the picture. Immerse them in hard (rewarding) work in the wild and let Mother Nature work her magic on them. Reformed reprobates make the best ambassadors. I had no real awe or reverence for nature until my mother dropped me off with a 50 pound pack at age 17 at the Gila National Park for a 28 day walkabout with Outward Bound. I was alternately sore, exhausted, terrified, thrilled, and have scars to this day from that trip. But in all the hard work of hiking, carrying all our own gear, climbing, rappelling, paddling the Rio Grande, (and seeing the degradation of the water quality) waking at dawn with the morning dew settled on me, a joy of living And a deep sense of connection for this natural wild space awakened in me and I have voted ‘green’ ever since. So banish the hoodlums from a national park? Au contraire, IMMERSE them in it.
Guillotine, please.
As Trump said, climate change is just weather, so the Salt Flats is just flat salt. We use it on French (or should I say Freedom) Fries all the time. Am I right? Get over it….. The American Idiot. Coming to a generation near you.
Meet Amazon Tsapanawas Indian Chief Sheena. Isolated from the outside world, Sheena has an interview with Anthropologist Carlos Meirellas. Location is Peru & Brazil border.
David Hill of UK “The Guardian” is critical of this documentary, Channel 4’s “Lost Tribe of the Amazon”.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2016/mar/27/channel-4-lost-tribe-amazon
See documentary video.
First Contact Lost Tribe of the Amazon 2016
Tatoo this phrase on their foreheads:
Dorkhead, Dorkhead, Dorkhead!
I wanna be a Dorkehead Man!
Give them 30 days in prison for each day they were on premise.