Yeah, there's some real jackwagons visiting the National Parks. I spotted a young couple at Hurricane Ridge that completely ignored all the signs (and they were everywhere) saying "STAY ON THE PAVED TRAILS" taking photos and videos frolicking around the wildflowers and vegetation despite the fact it was very clear this does damage to the delicate ecosystem up there. I yelled at them and they were taken aback - I pointed out the signs and said "It's a National Park, show some respect". Some of my fellow visitors told me "Thank you" so I felt justified, but the amount of selfish entitlement of some people just astonishes me.
Also, go to North Cascades National Park. The least visited NP in our country, it is breathtaking and devoid of bugger eaters.
We just got back from Crater Lake NP. I'll just share one example of my interaction with people, because there would be too many to list.
But, first a little background. I hate people. With a passion. So while I know it's my own fault for going to a national park, we went to one that apparently isn't very busy at all. And we go WAY out of our way to avoid people while there. We do the popular hikes at 6:30 a.m., stay in a cabin in a campground instead of the family-riddled lodge, etc.
So, anyway, we notice the first night that the main area of the park right by the big lodge basically becomes deserted by 6 or 7 p.m. Wife thinks it would be great to find our own little spot to watch the sunset and look at the stars.
So last night, we load up our chairs, a music speaker and some cocktails and head up there around 7:30. As we expected, the place is a ghost town. For those of you who don't know, the rim around the sunken lake is 33 miles long. 33 miles. There's plenty of ########## room to spread out, in other words.
So we find a nice spot with no one in sight in either direction and hunker down. There are a few other couples doing the same thing scattered way out. You'll get a random person or people who walk by from time to time, but that's it. It's pretty great.
So we're getting closer to sunset... and it all starts to go to hell. First, a young couple walks up with their dog. They proceed to sit the dog up on the rock wall type thing that's about 2-3 feet high and that no one is supposed to be on at all. They spend the next 10 minutes shouting at the dog to try to get him to look at them for the photo. And he refuses. Just as they're about to give up, an older couple happens by and starts chatting with them.
At this point, they're maybe 15-20 feet away from us. We're clearly a couple in the throes of romance, and again, THERE ARE 33 MILES of trail with the EXACT SAME VIEW!!! So move along!!!
They finally leave.
So now the sun is officially setting, and here comes the stereotypical American family. Fat, really fat, loud, obnoxious, with a yippee dog, loud, fat, really fat, oblivious. They sidle up RIGHT next to us and I'm just glaring at them. The youngest fat with the dog gets the point and scadaddles. But the rest of the fats stay there. Just blathering on and on and on and on. About 10 feet from us. They finally realize it's physically impossible to fit more than one of them in the photo frame, so they leave.
And five seconds later, a different large family shows up and climbs the wall directly in front of us. And I mean directly. I don't mean close to us. Or right next to us. I mean directly between us and the setting sun. Two feet away from our bodies. I could reach out and strangle them, for instance. The husband and wife sit down on the stone wall and she proceeds to VIDEO the entire sunset on her phone. 15 minutes straight on record. I'm making all sorts of passive-aggressive comments to no avail. Finally, Master of Puppets comes up on my speaker and I change the volume from 1 to about 9. They looked at us like they didn't even know we were there. Just before I thought it might actually turn into something, they left.
If I had a gun, I would've used every bullet. Which is why I don't have a gun.