Parkgoer sparks outrage after sharing photos of tourists trampling on 'fragile' plants: 'It was ridiculous'

The United States has some incredibly beautiful places to visit, and they are truly worth exploring, documenting, and experiencing in full.

However, some visitors take the Instagramming one step too far and actually put the place they are so awed by at risk.

One Redditor came across this exact scenario while hiking in the Pacific Northwest during a wildflower bloom. They captured photos of other parkgoers straying from the trail and walking all over the fragile purple, green, and gold plants that made the scene so beautiful.

"If everyone did what people in [these photos] are doing, there would be no plants, just dirt and rocks." — Photo Credit: Reddit

"They don't have much time to grow and trampling them eventually kills them," they posted in the subreddit r/Seattle with a call to be more careful in National Parks. "If everyone did what people in [these photos] are doing, there would be no plants, just dirt and rocks."

And as another commenter confirmed, "there's tons of signs and ropes and these are federally protected fragile alpine meadows," so a big part of the complaint here is that these tourists should have known they were walking where it's not allowed.

As the original poster stated, even small disturbances can damage the underbrush of certain habitats to the point of no return. This makes natural attractions, well, less attractive, and fewer people will want to visit and support protected lands.

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On top of that, the damaged wildlife is often a source of food or shelter for the ecosystem at large, meaning other animals are hurt by a wandering off-trail detour just as much as the plants that are underfoot.

The principles of Leave No Trace can help out here. It promotes things like carrying out any trash or human materials that you carry into natural settings. It also means following marked trails and observing signs or rules that are posted about how to act and where to be.

"Every national park I've been to I've left angry over how many people destroy the land and leave trash everywhere," one commenter vented.