[Geysers] White Creek Trail Closure

[JEFFREY CROSS]

Jan asks why the trail into White Creek got closed...

I can't tell you why the NPS closed the trail into White Creek because I wasn't at the meetings where that issue got decided.

I can tell you that, if I were responsible for addressing that issue, **I would have made the same decision.**

White Creek used to be a quiet, secluded place to escape from the crowds of people waiting for Great Fountain.  Few people knew about it.  Those who did were, apparently, safe and responsible enough that I never became aware of any official action to close the trail.

About ten years ago (early 2000s), this changed.  The number of people going up White Creek to look at Octopus Pool and other features increased drastically.  The trail, which had once been a narrow footpath, widened to 4 feet in some places.  In other places, foot traffic spread out over large sections of the sinter sheet.  The ground around points of interest got trampled.  Often, families with small children would cluster next to thermal features.  Neither the parents nor the children had any knowledge of how to be safe in such situations.  Nobody understood how much environmental damage they were doing, either.

White Creek can't support that kind of visitation.  The trampling at Octopus Pool got written up in the scholarly literature.  The thin sinter ledges at Buffalo Pool went unnoticed by countless people who failed to understand the danger of such formations.

Why did this become a management problem in the early 2000s?  I'll guess...  Casual Park visitors found references to White Creek, published in guidebooks and on the internet, that urged them to visit the location.  No longer were visitors at White Creek confined to a select few safe, responsible people, who were motivated by a true interest in thermal features.  Today, anybody with access to the internet and popular guidebooks thinks of White Creek as a destination.

Here's the lesson I take from this--when we publicize our knowledge of certain parts of the Park, we'd do well to think about how people will behave when presented with the information.  In the example of White Creek, people acted irresponsibly.  Explicit, signed closure was the result.

Jeff Cross
jeff.cross at utah.edu


________________________________________
From: geysers-bounces at lists.wallawalla.edu [geysers-bounces at lists.wallawalla.edu] on behalf of JOChapple [jochapple at earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 4:49 PM
To: geyser list
Subject: [Geysers] White Creek access trail

Would someone please explain just when and why the NPS closed access toward Octopus Spring and the other features along White Creek? I know it happened either in 2010 or 2011 but would like to know the details.

Thank you.

Janet Chapple
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