Yellowstone National Park doesn’t mess around.
A summer trip to the great outdoors for one Colorado family has turned into a great big mess. 62-year-old Joseph Aita and others he was traveling with accidentally and unknowingly went off the beaten path at Yellowstone National Park, and now the Department of Justice is bringing the hammer down on him.
Aita pled guilty to “destroying a mineral resource” when he and those traveling with him walked into Canary Spring – a protected area of the Mammoth Hot Springs. Though he insists that it was all a big misunderstanding, he was then sentenced on October 31st to seven says in jail, five years of probation (with a ban from Yellowstone that also lasts five years) and a $3,000 fine.
After all of that was reported, the Colorado Springs man finally took the opportunity to tell his side of the story. Aita knows that he and those with him made a mistake, but he claims in an interview with KKTV that there wasn’t enough signage in the area to warn park goers to not enter the hot springs:
“We took this left-hand turn into a crowded parking lot and the only spot was right at the end of the parking lot. We had to make a three-point turn into this parking spot, right?
So by doing so, we avoided all the signs and the boardwalks… and we were facing an area that was pretty and it looked fun, but it also had no signs and the kids were excited.”
The kids that were with Aita apparently ran out into the hot spring area straight out of the car, prompting he and the other adult to enter the protected area as well to get the children back onto a proper path.
The 62-year-old had a bad feeling about the situation, but still didn’t think that they were doing any harm:
“We stayed up there a little too long, right? That was our mistake, and we acknowledge that. It was about 20 minutes on the park, and we thought we were okay
Didn’t think we did anything wrong because, again, there were no signs, there were no boardwalks, no fences, so that’s what threw us off.”
Aita pointed out that there were other people in the area who evidently reported he and the others he was traveling with to park rangers. He wishes that someone would have warned them before contacting officials, but understands that they were just trying to help protect the park.
Park rangers ended up stopping Aita and the rest of those traveling with him about 10 minutes after they had left, letting them know they had violated park safety guidelines and would face repercussions.
The Colorado Springs man just wishes things could have gone down differently, and warned future visitors of the park to be on the lookout:
“I guess in our minds, we didn‘t think it could be that bad because of the signage. If we had seen the sign or anybody warning us, you know ‘hey! hey! hey!’ But nothing that I saw gave me that immediate flag.
Understand that when you go, you know, they have signage, but it’s not just signage… any area that you’re not sure about I guess… you shouldn’t go on.”
Jail time for wandering into a protected area of a park? Gimme a break… given the amount of actual criminals, ones who commit violent crimes in a number of major cities, who either never get prosecuted or get a slap on the wrist and then are freed to go back and wreak havoc on the public, it’s astonishing that we’re actually locking people up over a mistake like walking in the wrong area at a national park. Priorities…
You can hear more about the incident in the local news story below:
