Fiery Furnace Prank

[Sombeech]

Another one.

We just felt there was so much beauracracy in Arches Park. We felt like they were telling us "you're so lucky that we're letting you in here". So, we felt like playing a few small pranks.

Fiery Furnace is an area that requires an extra permit. And of course, some extra money. This ticked us off a little bit, so we tried to act like we were walking in without a permit, just to make the Ranger sweat a little.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=SY2YmE2SHFM[/youtube]

[Iceaxe]

EXCELLENT!!!



I got a National Parks Pass

Unfortunately I'm afraid the furnace will be closed at a future date, except for ranger guided tours.

[accadacca]

That ain't funny!! Oh yes it was...

[stefan]

national parks pass .. it's everywhere you want to go



nice acting rockgremlin ... the first few lines you deliver flawlessly. then it's funny watching you try to hold back that smile :D


it's like stare into that not so hidden camera ... you're on

uutah prank camera

[Alex]

That's classic, I think every decent hiking group pulls one of those on those poor rangers. The poor bastards have to put up with a lot of $hit there

[rockgremlin]

In retrospect, I should have strung him out a little longer. Maybe turned my back and started walking away, just to see if he would tackle me with my 18-month-old toddler on my back.

[rockgremlin]

You know, I had so much fun pulling the legs of all the Rangers this past weekend, that we're definitely gonna have to get together and do it again. Maybe at Zion, or Capitol Reef.

Arches is so fun just because there is such a tight beauracracy tied to everything there. I don't think the Rangers at Arches have been laid for at least 5 years!

[Shan]

That is hilarious! That is exactly why my H doesn't want to be a park ranger with his degree.

[moabfool]

Last summer I was doing the Birch Hollow/Orderville Gulch combo platter. My buddy and I got to the bottom of the last rappel in Birch Hollow and there stands a ranger. I was surprised to see a ranger outside of the park, but I figured he was just keeping honest people honest and I was glad I had my permit.

He asked me how many were in my group. "Just two," I said. Then he asked me if we'd run into any other groups. "Yah, two groups of 8 to 10 each." His eyes got as big as dinner plates and he asked to see my permit.

At this point I was just praying that I had switched the permits in my drybag (we had done Pine Creek the day before). I opened up the permit and saw "Orderville Canyon" on it, felt very relieved, and said, "Yup, here it is."

"This permit is for Orderville Canyon." The ranger replied incredulously.

"Uh huh," I said.

"A permit for Orderville Canyon doesn't allow you to descend Englestead Hollow."

It's amazing how many fully thought-out lines of thought can go through ones mind in the fraction of a second. 'How in the world am I going to convince him (and the judge) that we really were in Birch Hollow?' I thought. 'Crap, this guy is going to write us a ticket and make us hike up Orderville.'

I really had to struggle to not say what I thought next. 'Well I guess that would matter if we were in Englestead Hollow,' I thought. Luckily I grew up around cops so I knew that was a bad idea. After a few short moments I came up with something much more polite. "Well this isn't Englestead Hollow; this is Birch Hollow. Would you like me to show you where we are on the map?" He said yes, I pulled out my Zion topo, flipped it open, and said, "Here's Englestead Hollow, here's the Park boundary, and here's where we are," while trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

Turns out he was new to The Park and had never done Englestead. He was with another ranger and a female volunteer. The other ranger had done the navigating. Our ranger was quite embarrassed and apologetic and left very quickly.

My friend and I had a great hike. It was his first successful canyoneering trip to Zion (the last one got frozen out). He's just an adult-sized kid so naturally he loved it.

We ran into the same rangers later in the day, right after we had been stopped on the river walk by some German tourists asking us why we had ropes. After explaining the sport of canyoneering to the tourists I told the ranger, "They're the third or fourth group that's stopped us asking questions." I told him. "I bet you get people asking you dumb questions all the time."

"Yah, and sometimes we ask the dumb questions, like 'Where's Englestead Hollow?'."

[DiscGo]

That was funny. I'm sorry to didn't click on the link when it was referred to me .