Stop Frying Eggs on Roadside, Death Valley Officials Say

Attention aspiring Mythbusters: The 'leave no trace' park policy still applies, even for eggs

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Steve Marcus / REUTERS

Bengt Johsson of Sweden tries to fry an egg on a rock as high temperatures reach 128 degrees fahrenheit at Badwater Basin, 282 feet (85.5m) below sea level, in Death Valley National Park in California June 29, 2013.

While Death Valley National Park celebrates the 100th anniversary of the hottest day ever recorded in the world–134 degrees–park officials are hoping their visitors aren’t carrying out a cliché statement about the temperature.

Death Valley park officials wrote on their Facebook page recently that maintenance crews have been “busy cleaning up eggs cracked directly on the sidewalk, including egg cartons and shells strewn across the parking lot. This is your national park, please put trash in the garbage or recycle bins provided and don’t crack eggs on the sidewalks, or the Salt Playa at Badwater.”

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Ironically, Park officials are actually the ones who sparked the trending activity: A video, which has already generated over 161,000 views since being uploaded on June 29th, shows a Death Valley employee proving that an egg, served sunnyside up, is able to cook in the 127.6-degree heat. At one point, the egg-cracker “highly recommends” using a skillet, because a frying attempt with just the ground “makes a mess and it doesn’t work.”

“The video set off a surge of [egg-frying], especially since we were nearing our record temperature,” park spokesperson Cheryl Chipman tells NBC. “I don’t think we’ve seen the garbage strewn about that we did this time, which was a little disappointing.”

Death Valley has been undergoing a heat wave, along with much of the West Coast, this summer, with temperatures reaching 128 degrees in late June. The temperature had cooled to a relatively mild 118 degrees on Wednesday.

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