Trying not to be a touron

It's hard not to be a cad when you surround yourself with tourons

On a hike down the popular Cascade Canyon Trail in Grand Teton National Park we encountered seemingly hundreds of tourons.

What is a touron you ask?

Touron is a gene splice between a tourist and a moron. Locals are often accused of calling all out-of-state visitors tourons.

Now before you label me a cad, I will admit that on a regular basis I act like a touron.

How can you tell a touron from a typical outdoor recreator? Tourons are often easy to spot. Many arrive in parks with pale white skin that is quickly turning into lobster red. They wear bright colored Bermuda shorts with the latest Yellowstone T-shirt fresh off the rack at the souvenir shop. Often they are equipped with chilled bottled spring water in one hand and a smart phone in the other.

But most of all it's how they act. They ask goofy questions, such as “Hey ranger, who plants all these wildflowers?” or “What time do they let out the bison? I'd like to be in the best position for a great photo.”

Once while hiking down the trail with my children near Inspiration Point on the west side of Jenny Lake in the Tetons, we stopped and began picking and eating huckleberries. The bushes were covered with the ripe juicy fruit and I wondered why no one else was pouncing on them. A touron (the mom variety) stared wide eyed at us, holding her child back who was getting too close to the bushes and said in a very stern voice, “Do you know what you're eating? Are you sure those berries aren't poisonous?”

I just looked at her seriously and said, “Whoa! I sure hope they're not poisonous because I've been eating these berries for the past 4 miles.”

I showed her my hands stained with purple juice. She just shook her head and walked away, gripping her child's hand tight and telling her not to get near the berries.

OK, so I am a cad.

On another rock climbing visit, my sons and I were hiking down Cascade Canyon and came upon the goofy scene of a large bull moose standing in the middle of the creek. It was obvious that the big boy wanted to cross the stream, but he was hesitating because the side he wanted to move to was lined with tourons gawking and picture taking. Clearly the moose had a distaste for tourons.

It was actually the second moose in a few miles of hiking that we had seen on the trail surrounded by tourons.

About 100 feet later we walked around a curve in the trail to be greeted by a man and woman, staring intently off the trail. The woman raised an index finger to her lips and said, “Shhhh!”

“Whoa! There's another one!” I said loudly, thinking there was another moose to be seen.

The woman cast me a mean look, “Well you scared it away,” she said, disgustedly. “It” turned out to be a marmot waddling away along a log.

I suppose if I were from Alabama or Paris, France, and I had never seen a marmot and three sweaty guys with packs full of climbing gear, half jogging down the trail scared away the only marmot I'd ever seen, I would be disgusted too.

So I'm a double cad.

Sometimes the non-tourons become the part of the touron attractions. While my son Sam and I were rock climbing at Red Rock Canyon National Reserve near Las Vegas, several tourons were hiking nearby around the rock walls, looking at formations and making comments. Perhaps they didn't know that their words would carry far bouncing off the walls.

“Hey, look daddy, there's some more climbers!”

“This place is filled with those crazy people,” came a woman's voice.

“Hey daddy, I want to try rock climbing,” came a child's voice.

“Don't even think about it. Those people have a death wish,” the parent answered.

Sam looked at me halfway up the rock wall and said loud enough for all to hear, “Hurry up. It's my turn to try and kill myself.”

I'm raising a family of cads.

But I have a confession to make that sometimes when I visit distant towns, beaches, or parks that I've never been to before, I get this irresistible urge to take dozens of silly photos of statues, buildings and squirrels. I feel my pockets with sand dollars, eat overpriced gelato from vending stands, and even pose with the kids in front of the arches in southern Utah.

I remember eating a tasty fish taco in San Diego and begging my wife to let me buy a T-shirt that had a giant fish taco on it.

Not only am I a cad, but I'm a cad trying to not be a touron.