Every summer thousands of college students go to work in our National Parks serving millions of visitors. Some students become seasonal rangers for the National Park Service doing a wide variety of duties from interpretive programs, administration, search and rescue prevention, and manning entrance stations. Thousands of others go to work in the restaurants, lodges, and gift shops providing meals, film and clean rooms to a range of guests from around the world working for park management companies.
Amfac Parks & Resorts is the largest park management company in the United States and the company's roots go back to 1876. They manage the resorts and lodges at some of the country's most popular parks including Zion, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Yellowstone.
The jobs are very attractive to young students. Relatively short hours, room and board in dormitory style housing that offers opportunities to make lifetime friendships, and plenty of free time to explore the wilderness around them. Although an experience of waiting tables may not help get you into an internet startup at graduation, it is a welcome change of pace to the hectic and stressful life of college. At Yellowstone National Park there are over 3,000 seasonal Amfac employees on the payroll.
For eight of these employees the afternoon of August 21st in Yellowstone National Park started out like so many others. Parking their cars on Fountain Flat Drive they took the well-worn trail into the dangerous regions of the Lower Geyser Basin. Home to some of the largest and hottest springs in Yellowstone National Park, including famous Grand Prismatic Spring.
The half-mile long trail through the Lower Geyser Basin is popular among anglers and bathers alike, who take the journey to the Firehole River to fish and swim in the water that is warmed by overflow from the nearby springs. Aquatic life teems in the mineral rich water attracting trout. A swim in the warm water is a welcome relief from icy Yellowstone Lake.
As the hours ticked away the afternoon of innocent fun on the banks of the Firehole soon turned into dusk, and dusk soon turned into night. As the last shred of light faded from the horizon the group decided to head back to their cars in the darkness. None of them had a flashlight and the moon had not risen. It would be like walking through the Lower Geyser Basin with your eyes closed.
Three choose a different route from the rest of the group. Lance Buchi and Sara Hulphers both work at the restaurant in the Old Faithful Lodge. Sara had been working at the park for only six weeks. Tyler Montague cleaned rooms at Old Faithful Lodge. Eighteen-year-old Lance and Tyler are both from Salt Lake City and had just graduated from high school. Twenty-year-old Sara, from Oroville, Washington, was on her way to being a Junior studying biology at Western Washington University.
We take hot water for granted. Hot water heats our houses, cooks our food, keeps our cars cool in a radiator, runs power plants as steam, we even bathe in it. People around the world revel in natural hot springs like 110° F. Lava Hot Springs in Idaho and world famous Hot Springs, Arkansas. But as the water temperature continues to creep up, the risk for being scalded grows.
If you were to sit in a pool of water at 113° F. for three hours, you could receive a debilitating and life threatening third-degree burn. The entire thickness of your skin would be burned through, the blood vessels and nerve endings would be dead, and the damage would extend into your muscles and even your bones. Turn the temperature up to 120° F., and the time becomes eight minutes. Turn the temperature up to 140° F. and the time becomes just five seconds. Make the temperature 156° F., and it is only one second. Any higher and the time is measured in fractions.
Hot water burns are very common, especially among young children. Thousands of scalding injuries happen each year ranging from errant hot water heaters to a hot cup of coffee spilling over in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Victims of severe scalding by hot water or steam talk of incredible pain. The heat from the water soaks into your body and you continue to burn, even when the hot water is removed from you. The heat is soaked into your clothes and hair. It is a horrible, painful injury.
The springs of Yellowstone National Park are also rich with dissolved carbon and sulfur making some of the pools very acidic. Acidity is measured using a scale called pH. If something is neutral, like pure water, it is said to have a pH of 7. If something is acidic it has a lower pH. Dirty rainwater loaded with carbon and sulfides might have a pH of 5. Vinegar on a salad might have pH of 3. Battery acid in your car might have a pH of 1. Some of the springs in Yellowstone National Park have a caustic pH of 1.75 and even lower.
The first group of five made it to the cars parked on Fountain Flat Drive. It was about that time, close to 11:00 at night, it happened. Something went terribly wrong. Desperate cries for help suddenly shattered the night. The cries came from the Lower Geyser Basin.
Find out more about the tragedy in Yellowstone...
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