I’ve written a lot this year on the beauty and hardships of Yellowstone National Park. From its ecological revival thanks to the reintroduction of gray wolves, the mysterious blue pool that appeared out of nowhere, and even the bison that was boiled alive in front of tourists in one of those thermal pools.
I regret to inform you that Yellowstone’s hot Springs are under attack yet again, and not just from poached bison. They are being attacked by your hats.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and picked up by Outside, 2025 has been a big year for garbage fishing in the park’s iconic hydrothermal pools. There have been over 13,000 pieces of trash, 4,000 rogue rocks and sticks, and 300+ lost hats fished out of geysers, mudpots, and hot springs.
In total, Yellowstone’s cleanup team has walked 1,300 miles and driven 11,000 more just to un-junk the park’s boiling, bubbling pools. That’s more than most Americans walk in a decade, just to save nature from your Boston Red Sox hat that got swept up in the wind and dropped off in a hot spring.
Yellowstone’s Hot Springs Are Being Killed By Hats
Trash in this geothermal pool can irreversibly change its behavior. The temperature can change, I can alter their color, and trash even affects how and when they erupt. The famous morning glory pool was once a rich and vivid blue, but now it has a tie-dye palette of oranges, greens, and yellows.
Some of those changes happen naturally over time. But scientists are pretty sure that this particular pool changes colors after decades of idiot tourists tossing in coins for “good luck.”
According to the USGS, the 2025 haul of garbage yanked out of some of Yellowstone’s pools includes such standout pieces of debris as “Birkenstock sandal, a pizza box with slices still inside, a fake Louis Vuitton bucket hat, a stuffed koala toy, a ball cap with the phrase ‘I PEE IN THE LAKE,’ and a Polaroid picture of Excelsior Geyser—which was found within Excelsior Geyser’s crater.”
A baseball cap with the phrase “I PEE IN THE LAKE” is the real prize here. There is no garbage more fitting to poison a beautiful natural geological feature than a hat celebrating pissing.
Yellowstone has some notoriously high winds that inevitably disrupt the experience of many of its annual 4.7 million visitors. Park staff can’t hop into these volcanic pools with a skimmer, so they’ve got to break out a weird arsenal of tools like 30-foot grabber poles and things that essentially amount to huge, very expensive slotted spoons.
Most of the littering is accidental. Some of it isn’t. The next time you’re at Yellowstone, resist the urge to throw your trash, including coins, into the beautiful geothermal features, and please, for the sake of the park’s natural beauty, hold down your hat when those winds kick up.
The post Yellowstone’s Hot Springs Are Under Attack—by Hats appeared first on VICE.
