Cited for walking off the boardwalk in Yellowstone National Park.

The closures, and why it cannot be paid by mail

On top of the regulation sit the superintendent's closures, which carry the same force once posted (36 CFR § 1.5(f)). The current Yellowstone compendium extends the canyon rule from Chittenden Bridge to the Upper Falls and from Inspiration Point to Silver Cord Cascade, confines foot travel to the trail through signed revegetation areas, and closes every thermal area to smoking and to food carried outside a pack. Fenced ground at Norris is closed ground; the magistrate judge has said from the bench that three-foot fencing around a boardwalk is a clear sign the area is closed. A closure count is often charged alongside the foot-travel count.

The District of Wyoming's collateral schedule lists foot travel in thermal areas and the canyon as a mandatory appearance. A closure violation by itself is $100 on the same schedule, and damaging a mineral formation is listed at $250 or an appearance. A notice for the thermal count therefore arrives with Box A checked, and the page on reading the notice explains what follows. The case will be called at Mammoth whether or not you do anything, and someone has to answer for you when it is.

Mammoth, Old Faithful, Norris, Midway

The Mammoth terraces sit a short walk from the court that hears the case, and the travertine there keeps a footprint, which is why some Mammoth cases carry a second count for destroying a mineral resource (36 CFR § 2.1(a)(1)(iv)). In 2026 a Texas visitor who left footprints across Canary Spring and three other features drew five days in custody; in 2024 a Colorado man who entered the protected area at Canary Spring with a second adult and two children received seven days, five years of probation with a ban, and a $3,000 fine. At Old Faithful a visitor who walked roughly ten feet out onto the cone, filmed by a stranger, received seven days in 2025. At Norris a twenty-one-year-old who crossed the fence and climbed toward Steamboat Geyser's vent received a week, $1,500, and a two-year ban. At Midway two visitors who walked onto the bacterial mat at Opal Pool were each given two days, $350, $106.92 in restitution, and a two-year ban.

Two places produce notices without a boardwalk in sight. The Grand Prismatic Overlook trail, off the Fairy Falls trail, crosses a hillside above thermal ground: stepping off it toward the spring is charged under the same paragraph as the boardwalks, and where the slope is signed as a revegetation area, a $100 count for leaving the trail (36 CFR § 2.1(b)) comes with it. The canyon rim, from Uncle Tom's to Artist Point and along the North Rim, is named in the same paragraph as the geyser basins. A photograph from a rock beyond the railing is charged exactly like a step off the boardwalk at Norris.

Why the sign still matters

The boardwalks are marked by official signs, as the rule requires, and the edge of the boardwalk is itself the line. The pictogram signs at the basins, the fences at Norris, and the printed warnings the park puts in front of visitors are how the government answers the person who says nobody told him, and the ranger's report will list what was posted at the spot. The charge and the sentence are different questions. A visitor who stepped onto the crust for a picture, was called back, and came back is at one end of the range. A visitor who read the sign, climbed the fence, and argued when the ranger arrived is at the other, and the announced jail sentences live there. What you said in the first minute is in the report. What you did in the thirty seconds before is on someone's phone. Both are evidence of state of mind, and when the act is not in dispute, state of mind is what the disposition turns on.

The video

A large share of these cases begin with a clip a stranger uploaded, and the ranger's report quotes it: the caption, the comments, the time stamp, the distance the poster guessed. If you are the person in the clip, three things follow. Do not respond to it, because a reply is a statement. Do not post your own, because an explanation with a location tag is a confession. And do not delete what you already published: destroying a record in contemplation of a federal matter is its own offense, with a penalty measured in years (18 U.S.C. § 1519). Send me the link and leave the rest alone.

When more than one person stepped off

In the 2024 case at Canary Spring, the two adults who entered the protected area with two children were the two defendants; the children were not charged. Each adult cited has a case in their own name at Mammoth, the government treats the cases as related, and nobody in a group should resolve anything until all of them have talked to a lawyer. Guides are the other version: in 2021 a self-styled guide who promoted off-trail thermal trips in a guidebook and a podcast was tried on fifteen counts, found guilty on seven after a two-day bench trial, and given a week in custody, five years of probation, and an order to rewrite the book's introduction. Nor is the person who is hurt excused. A visitor burned off-trail in 2023 was charged for the walk, with a ban from both parks as a condition of release while the case was pending.

The ban as a condition of probation

A park ban is not a separate sentence; it is a condition of probation. Federal law lets the court place a misdemeanor defendant on probation for up to five years (18 U.S.C. § 3561(c)(2)) and attach conditions reasonably related to the offense, including that the defendant refrain from frequenting specified kinds of places (18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(6)). In thermal cases the specified place is Yellowstone, the term has run from two years to five, and in the 2016 Grand Prismatic case it covered every acre managed by three federal departments. Entering the park while the condition is in force is a probation violation. A ban is avoidable in many cases and negotiable in most, and it is the term I spend the most time on for anyone who intends to come back.

Restitution and payments

The court can order restitution as a condition of probation (18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(2)), and it has: $106.92 for the mat at Opal Pool, a figure precise to the cent. More often the judgment includes a community-service payment to the Yellowstone Forever geological fund, $500 to $1,000 in the announced cases, which is neither a fine nor restitution but arrives in the same order. What a conviction does afterward, and how the case is handled without you flying back, have their own pages: whether this is a criminal record, and whether you have to return to Wyoming. The Yellowstone page covers the court itself.