The panel beside the exhibit notes that the thermal hazard zone where Daniel Voss died has been designated and marked, that the search and rescue protocols in thermal backcountry terrain have been revised, and that the recovered images represent the last photographic record made by a person whose disappearance prompted a half ccentury of searching.
It notes that backcountry permits in Yellowstone National Park now include a mandatory acknowledgement of thermal hazard zones, which must be read and initialed by every backcountry permit applicant before the permit is issued.
In the calendar year of 2026, the park issued 14,200 such permits. In 2027, the number rose to 15,800.
Each person who initialed the form was told in six lines of clearly printed text at the bottom of the acknowledgement page that the secondary thermal zones of the back country, the places away from the famous geysers, [music] away from the boardwalks and the interpretive panels and the crowds with their telephoto lenses pointed at bison were the most hazardous terrain in the park precisely because they were the least marked.
