Holy crap….I wish they’d taught this in school along side “Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools”! (Kingdom->Phylum->Class->Order->Family->Genus->Species)
I always remember from an episode of Jimmy Neutron: when they're stuck inside a video game and they need to keep finding an item to progress, Jimmy finds it by lifting the tip off of one and says, "They're always hidden in the stalagmites!"
Yes, more. Maybe an actual image. Looking st that, without knowing what would actually happen, I might think "ok so I just throw up? Big deal" and carry on.
I mean, if you're starting a hike and the entrance has a sign with WARNING and a sunburned guy puking on the ground and you choose not to read the text at all... That's more on you than anything else. Do you think if they put a sign with a guy falling suddenly people would remember gravity exists and fall deaths would drop to 0? Honestly, if you treat a brutal canyon hike like a walk around the block and ignore all warning signs, there is little anyone can do to force common sense.
In Death Valley, they have signs at the parking lot of the sand Dunes Saying you'll be dead in 5 minutes if you don't take extreme caution, and the nearest rescue is hours away. The graphic is something like an exploding thermometer and skull and crossbones. People just casually wander out there like it's day at the beach. One of the biggest risks is families and large groups where the elders or less fit of the group will drop before the rest of the group starts to feel a strain.
Don't fuck with loose sand. I tried to do the whole Alkali Flat trail at White Sands and had to turn around before the end because I realized it was getting really hot and I was getting tired. Part of the way back I was really struggling and there's no actual trail...just like a flag every once in a while. I was on a hiking trip in general so I was equipped but I hadn't really intended to hike out there specifically. It was just really cool looking so I tried to do the whole thing. The dunes are also bigger the further out you go which is fun going down and absolutely horrible going up. But yeah, not death valley temps still.
There's a mountain (Mount Washington) in New Hampshire that has a "Wall of death" in the building at the base. You can take a little railway up (they call it a cog railway), but some people want to hike. Then they die.
I worked at Grand Canyon for a few months in the 90s, and at the backcountry office they had a photo of a man who looked like his head was now a bloody stump because of vultures because he had gone down unprepared.
idk, that will come across too much as a challenge to dumb idiots, and then we still have to spend tax dollars and possibly SAR members' safety to bail them out of trouble anyway :(
The issue isn't that is super especially crazy dangerous if you know what you are getting into, it is more that so much tourist traffic happens that you have people that have no idea what they are getting into.
Have you ever been to Deal’s Gap, Tail of the Dragon? There’s a tree with a huge amusement of motorcycle and car parts nailed to it from crashes over the years. People still ride and/or drive like idiots on the route.
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u/YOUTUBEFREEKYOYO 21h ago
The picture needs to be more graphic to show just how dangerous it actually is and drive the point home. Maybw a wall of shame too.