An Idaho man has been banned from Yellowstone National Park after he tried to cook two chickens in a hot spring. Park rangers were alerted that a group of people was hiking off of the trails and approaching the hot springs in Shoshone Geyser Basin.
When the rangers arrived, they found a group of nine adults and one child hanging out in a restricted area with cooking pots. The rangers also found a burlap sack with two whole chickens cooking in one of the geysers. The ranger cited the man and two others in the group for entering a restricted thermal area.
The man, who was not identified, was ordered to appear in Mammoth Hot Springs court, where he pleaded guilty to the citation and an additional charge of violating closures and use limits. He was ordered to pay $1,200 in fines and was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation. During those two years, he is banned from entering Yellowstone National Park.
This isn't the first time somebody has tried to use the thermal geysers in Yellowstone to cook food. According to the Idaho Statesman, a cooking show host from Seattle tried to demonstrate that the natural heat from the hot springs could cook a chicken. He dug and hole and put the chicken in the ground. He was fined $150 and given two years of probation for disturbing mineral deposits in a national park and stepping off trails near steaming geysers.
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