If you’re dead set on committing a federal crime in Yellowstone National Park, you might as well post video of yourself doing the deed to social media. It makes it that much easier for law enforcement to find you.
A man who goes by the handle Doeboi909, a hip-hop artist based in San Bernardino, California, posted a video of a recent visit to Yellowstone National Park on his YouTube channel.
Rather than rapping about it, he decided to make it an “educational” video in the most idiotic way possible by showing what not to do.
Doeboi909 stepped off a boardwalk and approached a steaming thermal pool. He got within a foot of the water, standing on the thin crust of travertine separating him from what could have been a gruesome death.
“Blue! That’s how hot it is,” he shouted to the person filming his federal crime. “It’s over 1,000 degrees.”
Most of Doeboi’s words are drowned out by the noise of the fumarole roaring behind him. Oblivious to the multiple directions of danger surrounding him, the rapper decided to crowdsource more vacation ideas from his 61,000 subscribers.
“Lemme know in the comments where you wanna go next,” he said. “Doeboi gonna take you there.”
Nobody should follow where Doeboi909 leads. He was lucky to get out of Yellowstone without being arrested, let alone severely injured or killed by his ignorance.
Now that Doeboi posted the video to YouTube, the National Park Service is likely to want to make his next adventure a visit to the Yellowstone Detention Center.
“Maybe he can hit some rhymes when he’s back in a couple weeks for court,” said Jen Mignard, owner of the popular Facebook page Yellowstone National Park: Invasion of the Idiots.
Bumbling Near Beryl (Not Mammoth)
Doeboi tagged his video as being at “MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS,” but he’s spreading misinformation in his lack-of-educational video. But if he had heeded any signs, we wouldn’t be here.
The steaming blue pool and roaring fumarole reveal that he actually stepped off the boardwalk surrounding Beryl Spring, a thermal feature 24 miles south of Mammoth along the Grand Loop Road.
Beryl Spring is one of the hottest thermal pools in Yellowstone, as evidenced by its deep blue color. The pool is 25 feet wide and 8 feet deep, but the boiling water and volcanic gases can occasionally splash water more than 4 feet above the surface.
Doeboi said the water mere inches from his Vans-clad feet was over 1,000 degrees but Beryl Springs’ average temperature is only 196 degrees. If it were 1,000 degrees, it’d be hot enough to melt aluminum.
But 196 degrees is plenty hot enough to kill a person.
The fumarole raging within a few feet of Doeboi’s head is a dangerous vent of steam, water vapor and volcanic gases like chloride and hydrogen sulfide. At the surface, the gases mix into hot, acidic liquids caustic enough to erode concrete and asphalt.
None of Yellowstone’s thermal features are safe to approach, as the thin crust of earth surrounding the water can be only a few inches thick. Beryl Spring is among the most dangerous anyone could approach, but that didn’t stop Doeboi.
“He’s lucky he didn’t go through that thermal crust or he’d really be hip-hopping,” Mignard said.
Next Booking: Jail
Thermal trespass is a federal crime punishable by jail time, fines and a ban from Yellowstone National Park or every unit within the National Park Service. Offenders usually receive a fine under $1,000 and a one- to five-year ban from Yellowstone.
Ashton Hooker, a spokesperson for Yellowstone National Park, told SF Gate that Doeboi’s video has been “forwarded to Yellowstone law enforcement officers, and they will determine what action can be taken.”
Doeboi may have left Yellowstone soon after the incident, but that won’t prevent him from being prosecuted.
Dozens of people, including actor Pierce Brosnan, were convicted of thermal trespass after photos and videos of their transgression were posted on social media, either by onlookers or the perpetrators themselves.
People who’ve seen the video aren’t happy that Doeboi hip-hopped over the boardwalk for his too-hot-to-be-believable video.
“Bad enough to be a wanna be garbage rapper, but you gotta be a wanna be garbage human,” batmanson319 commented on YouTube.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
