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Usually, I wait until I've finished the book to do one of these, but this time I can't help myself. The book is Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park by Lee H. Whittlesley, second edition with even more Darwin Awards than the first.

Yes, I said Darwin Awards. Now, I'm not going to blame the 3 year old who fell into a hot pool in one of the geyser basins, 3 year olds are by nature ignorant of the world and in that case the blame lies with the adults that should have been holding onto the kid, but most of the deaths are due in part or wholly to stupidity, lack of common sense, and failure to heed warnings.

The book is organized into various categories, like "thermal features" (hot springs, geysers, mud pots, etc.", animals in general, bears specifically, lightning, clouds of poisonous gas... the latter of which, surprisingly, do NOT have a documented human fatality although there are plenty of documented cases of animals both large and small lying around dead for no visible reason.

I haven't even reached the second half of the book, which is humans causing human deaths (murder, accidental shootings, death from human-caused fire, carbon monoxide poisoning - because naturally occurring clouds of hydrogen sulfide and asphyxiating carbon dioxide aren't enough fun, I guess, missing and presumed dead, etc).

Now, to begin with, the area is loaded with what I'd call "warning label" names. Names that lend a sinister air to the geography and imply Bad Things Have Happened Here. Names like "Death Valley" - which, by the way, is not a part of Yellowstone although Yellowstone does have "Death Gulch". Here's a picture of it, taken in 1899. Three guesses why it's called "Death Gulch". By the way, the lumps of fur used to be bears and no, the gentleman in the picture did not kill them, he just found them.

The point being, there are a LOT of warning names in the area, like "Stinkingwater River", "Firehole River", "Colter's Hell" (I have no idea who Colter is or was), "Devil's Den", "Black Dragon Cauldron" and yeah, "Death Gulch". Reading about various incidents makes it sound like people were walking through a high-level end-zone in a MMORPG. Given that this is a book full of fatal incidents maybe there's some truth in that, although in the "reality game" hot lava is MORE than hot and there's no resurrection option.

Given that the books is organized by means of demise I think I'll go that route, too.

Geothermal Features: The Land and Water Are Not Friendly
As mentioned, a "geothermal feature" is a mix of heat, water, and sometimes mud. Geysers, hotsprings, mudholes... Yellowstone has a ridiculous number of these, allegedly half of the entire number that exist in the world. These aren't always obvious, some of them covered with thin crusts that will not support your weight, some of them smallish in size, some "hidden" in other waters - the Firehole River is riddled with these (maybe that's the origin of the name?) both along the banks and in the river itself. Once upon a time fishermen use to dunk fish, still on the line, into Fisherman's Hole, a hot spring in the middle of a lake that is otherwise quite congenial, to cook their fish. Park authorities have banned fishing in a lot of these areas, which has reduced the number of people coming to grief by accidentally stepping into these things. Which has killed at least one person who wasn't as cautious as he needed to be while fishing from shore.

Some names aren't so obvious. The name "Belgium Pool" doesn't sound too bad until you learned it was named after a foreign visitor from Belgium who fell into it and died.

If it wasn't for the fact of horrible suffering and death, some of the stuff that has gone on around these things would be comical - distracted people stepping backward into doom, people falling into one boiling puddle only to leap up and immediately fall forward or backward into another hotpot/mudhole/geyser/whatever... In this chapter we learn that it is possible to fall into body of literally boiling water, receive third degree burns over 100% of your body in minute if not seconds, then get out and stumble around literally screaming for a bit, perhaps even running around screaming, then linger hours or a day or so before finally succumbing to one's injuries. Screaming while in such a pool is ill-advised, as the water getting into your mouth or throat will literally burn on the way down, thereby allowing you receive third degree burns of greater extent than merely your entire exterior surface. Yes, that has happened. I'm beginning to wonder if the Salt Lake City burn unit has a dedicated wing for Yellowstone victims, it's not just the deceased, a lot more people are injured but not killed by this landscape.

Now, the author does talk about how NOT to die, which can be broken down into simple rules:
- Warning signs apply to everyone, yes, even you.
- Stay on the boardwalk. We really mean it.
- Don't bring your dog. Especially, don't bring a dog without a leash. It is illegal to have a dog in Yellowstone that isn't on a leash, and you're not supposed to have them in the geothermal areas at all. Dogs get excited and run off and fall through the thin surface or jump into pools or try to drink from them or otherwise do dog things that, in most parts of the world, aren't lethal. In Yellowstone, those things can kill your dog. To say nothing of dog-hating wildlife. Dogs get into hot pools and die. A certain number of humans have died trying to rescue a dog from these places. It didn't end well. And most likely you won't get your dog back because it doesn't take long to render a dog into dog stew. Or people into stew. After one person fell into a hot pool the park report stated that the next day, less than 24 hours later, "eight pounds of meat, bone, and clothing were recovered". That's it. Keep your dog (and you) out of nature's not-so-slow cooker, m'kay? Did I mention that some of these pools are also acidic? Yes, boiling pools of acid. Welcome to Yellowstone, isn't is awesome?
- Hold onto your children. Literally. I know this suggestion will horrify some people but consider putting your kid on a leash. Over the years 8 kids have died horribly in these areas, almost all of them instances of young children running off/away from adults (one child might have been knocked backward into a pool by a distracted adult).
- Don't wander around in the dark. This has claimed more than one person. In fact, it once resulted in the only multiple-person burn incident in the park's history. Three employees out at night all managed to fall into the same pool at the same time. One death, two very badly burned survivors who spent months recovering from burns from shoulders to feet. No one knew what the fuck happened for months until the two survivors came out of their comas.
- Don't go swimming in hot pools. Some of them are safe. Most of them are not. Figure out how we know this.
- Don't go swimming in hot pools or the Firehole River, or the Stinkingwater River (note the names), or really ANYWHERE in Yellowstone at night which combines the hazards of the two prior points into one.

About 19 or 20 (some ambiguity, at least one of the "missing and presumed dead" cases is likely a geothermal death but with no body or parts or other evidence it's unproven) people have died in the geothermal features since the mid-19th Century. A lot more have been injured, some permanently. Some survivors/families have sued. In general, even in the lawsuit-happy US, they don't win. Yellowstone and the US government are not going to be held accountable for this sort of thing, especially given that there are warning signs and frequent cautions by park personnel (not that that has prevented employees from getting killed). Of course, people who watch their loved ones being literally boiled alive, or watch them linger for hours or days after getting burned before they finally die, are understandably emotional, they want to blame some one or some thing. There's a lot of survivor guilt. In one case, a man who was an industrial chemist sued the US government over the death of his child for not providing sufficient warning. The judge threw out the case, stating that in addition to the park warnings at entry to both the park and geothermal area and cautions not to leave the paths a professional chemist should have been tipped off by the rotten-egg smell in the area (low levels of hydrogen sulfide) and the pools of boiling liquid in the area that there was danger in the vicinity. Yes, the death was tragic. But it was no one's fault (unless you want to argue negligent parent(s)).

Bottom line - the area is pretty but dangerous. STAY ON THE BOARDWALK!


Amazingly, no one has been killed by looking into a geyser hole just before eruption. A dozen or so have been burned doing that, but while they've had their faces/heads scalded no one has actually died from a geyser eruption. That we know about.

Animal life
The animals in Yellowstone are wild. Unlike a zoo, there are no protective fences, moats, or other obstacles between you and them. Stay the fuck away from the animals, yes, even the little ones. Squirrels bite, too, and some of them in the region carry bubonic plague (well, their fleas do, but the point is stay the fuck away).

Moose are dangerous. They can kill you.

Bison are dangerous. They're huge. They are not friendly. Stay the fuck away. Bison don't just knock you down and gore you once, they make sure you are dead. They'll gore you with their horns, tossing you 3-4 meters or further each time, do it 12 or 15 or more times, and trample you a bit, too. Their horns can go through the full thickness of a human torso. They can and have eviscerated people. Bison have been hunted by people for over 10,000 years. They consider humans a threat and will treat you accordingly if you get too close. The Plains Indians, who used to eat buffalo on a daily basis and basically depended on them the way today's world depends on petroleum i.e. used them for everything, must have been bad-ass motherfuckers to take on these guys on a regular basis. Also explains why, when they found out about guns, they said "fuck bows and arrows, we're going to stand way the hell back here and shoot lead at them".

Stay the fuck away from predators - you know, the things that can take on those huge, highly dangerous and unfriendly bison and actually have a chance of winning. I'm assuming everyone here can figure out why.

Coyotes are not dogs. They haven't killed anyone, but they are not dogs so do not pet them or treat them as dogs. Now that we're on the subject of dogs again - consider NOT bringing yours to Yellowstone, m'kay? And if you do bring one, keep it on a leash and the fuck away from the other animals.

Yellowstone wolves seem to avoid people. That's great. The author hasn't mentioned any killing of humans by wolves, and I don't think there have been, but why be the first, right? These guys have been known to take down those huge, unfriendly dangerous bison on occasion. They are not your pet dog. Leave them the fuck alone.

Do not attempt to help animals in distress. This is a wild place where nature is allowed to be nature. One incident involved a bison that had fallen through thin ice on the Yellowstone River and some tourists were attempting to rope it and pull it out. The rangers put a stop to that, despite the ire of the tourists. Mr. Bison will not thank you for helping him - he'll just assume you're trying to eat him or something because in the wild an animal in distress is not someone to help, it's a free (or at least, relatively low-cost) lunch for predators. Mr. Bison will not thank you, he'll try to kill you and from his viewpoint it's a matter of self-defense.

Bears
These guys have their own category.

Do not feed the bears. Do we really still need to tell people this? Apparently so. Also, don't fuck with the cubs, momma is always nearby and she's not friendly. Trying to climb a tree will not save you from momma bear, as more than one person has discovered. The bear will follow you up. Do not try to get a selfie with a bear. Do not attempt to put your child on the back of a bear (yes, really, people have done this). Do not go near the bears. Did I mention leave the fucking bears alone? Leave the non-fucking bears alone, too. Just stay the hell away from the bears.

Actually, given their size, strength, natural weaponry, and so forth it's sort of surprising how few people have been killed by bears. The first two human deaths to occur in the park after being made an official park might have been by bears - the documentation of the incident, in 1904, is a bit shaky, not the least of which because it happened in an area that in those days was pretty remote.

But while there have been relatively few deaths there have been lot of injuries, in some years over 100 a year or basically one every couple of days. Even if they don't kill you, bears can cause severe injuries and leave you maimed for life.

Do not go poking around in caves. Especially in winter. How would you react to waking up to a bear sitting on your bed? Not well, I'd imagine. That's how bears regard you disturbing them in their caves. The big difference being that bears are much bigger than you, much stronger than you, and have claws and teeth they won't hesitate to use to defend themselves from what they regard as a threat. Oh, and caves in Yellowstone can also accumulate toxic gasses. Isn't it amazing how some of the threat categories overlap. Welcome to Yellowstone, it's awesome!

Now, on the upside - there are some simple things to do that can make things vastly safer for everyone:
- Warning signs apply to everyone, yes, even you. (Are you detecting a theme, here?)
- If you're camping you need to take precautions against attracting bears. That means putting everything that might attract a bear - not just food but also things like toothpaste or lip balm - in a proper container. Note that your cooler is NOT bear-proof. Yellowstone bears know what coolers are and that they are often filled with tasty, tasty human food. You CAR is not a bear-proof container - bears can and do break into vehicles to, again, steal that tasty, tasty human food. Think about it - destroying your car is a LOT easier and safer than taking on a moose or one of those huge unfriendly bison things. One reason to stick to official campsites is because they have bear-proof containers there, big heavy metal box things that bears can't get into. Put your food and other attractive stuff in there, lock it up, then camp at some distance just in case the bears decide to check out the bear-proof box anyway.
- if you see a bear don't get closer to it. Admire from afar.
- Make noise. Bears actually prefer to avoid confrontations. Despite humans being small and fragile Yellowstone wildlife is aware that humans are potentially dangerous. Hell, the critters in Yellowstone live in a death zone, they probably assume everything is dangerous. They'll happily avoid you if they know where you are. MAKE NOISE! Make noise while hiking. Make noise while preparing food and eating it. If a bear starts to approach make noise.
- Drive the speed limit, and drive cautiously. You car + speed + bear is a bad combination that can leave parties on both sides injured or dead. You don't want to be stuck in a damaged car, possibly injured yourself, and confronted with an injured and now very pissed off bear.

Actually, an important point with this book is that IF you follow the rules and heed warnings you can have a safe and happy visit to Yellowstone. It's when you don't follow rules and warnings that you can come to grief. Most injuries and deaths have some component of human stupidity involved.

(Actually, it's not just Yellowstone - in the mountains of Tennessee where my in-laws lived was also bear country. Local parks with hiking trails posted similar rules, the garbage bins were (mostly) bearproofed, and on occasion there would be bear-prints left in their backyard overnight. Never actually saw a bear down there, just signs they were around. Boy and girl scout traditions of singing/chanting while hiking are not just to stave off boredom on a long walk.)

Still reading about the bears, although I'm skipping around to different chapters as the mood takes me.

The first absolutely certain it was a bear that caused it death in the park involved a teamster. A trio of teamsters was passing through to make a delivery and stopped and camped for the night. Two of them bedded down under their vehicle. One of them had the habit of keeping his share of the group's bacon under his pillow at night. Yes, really, he used to sleep on a pile of bacon. Turns out bears also like bacon. Who knew? Bear shows up in the middle of the night and starts dragging stuff (including two people) out from under the wagon in search of tasty, tasty bacon. He found the bacon and apparently ate some of the bacon-lover as well. About a quarter of him, In front of his coworkers. The bear did not wait for him to finish dying first because in the wild predators are much more concerned about eating than killing. A "clean kill" is a human invention, and making sure your food is dead before you start dinner is likewise a human custom (and not entirely universal, either).

While some people killed by bears are very likely cases of either self-defense on the part of the bear (one hunter trailing an already wounded bear got off one shot before the bear killed him - it's not certain if the bear ripped the guy's head off before or after falling on him and crushing/collapsing his rib cage causing massive and lethal damage but the remains of head and torso were found at some distance from each other, as were the various limbs), a number of deaths, and a lot of the injuries, seem to be more cases that bears are so much bigger, stronger, and better armed than humans that they can cause severe injury or death without intending to do so, basically, they're accidents.

Other ways to die in Yellowstone:

Dining on Death: There are many edible wild plants in Yellowstone. There are also a few deadly ones. The toxic mushrooms having "warning label" names for the most part: death cap, destroying angel, deadly conocybe, deadly cort, deadly galerina... the conifer false morel has a comparatively benign name, except that the word "false" implies that this is not the morel you are looking for... There are no documented deaths from mushrooms in Yellowstone, although it could be that someone gathered toxic mushroom, left the park, ate them elsewhere and died outside the park statistical collection.

There is also the death camas - hey there's that word "death" again! - but again, no documented deaths in Yellowstone from eating it. Documented deaths from eating it elsewhere, both humans and livestock.

The one plant that has definitely killed people in Yellowstone is water hemlock. The big problem with this one is that it very much resembles wild carrots or parsnips. It is, in fact, related to both of those. It also has the word "hemlock" in the name. People who have survived eating these have described hours and hours of uncontrollable vomiting, shitting, muscle spasms, and convulsions. Those who die suffer the same only much worse. You really don't want to do this. This is another one that might well result in fatalities away from the park when people gather wild edibles (or think they did) and eat them later.

Rules to live by:
- Don't eat wild plants unless you're absolutely certain you know what they are.
- Don't eat wild carrots or parsnips in Yellowstone.
- Don't eat anything in Yellowstone with the word "death" in the name. Or "deadly", "destroying", or "hemlock".


Poisonous Gas
Yellowstone is, as we all know, volcanic. One feature of volcanos is outgassing of toxic vapors. The two most common such gasses found in Yellowstone are hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs and is quite toxic. Fortunately, human noses can detect this at absurdly low concentrations, well before it's thick enough to kill you - assuming, of course, you're smart enough to leave an area with the odor is getting stronger before it gets dangerous. As mentioned earlier, you can smell this around features like geysers and hot springs, especially the colorful ones, as many archae microbes actually eat the stuff. Nom, nom, nom.

The other deadly gas, and the one that probably does more killing, is carbon dioxide which is heavier that the normal atmospheric mix and tends to accumulate in low-lying or confined areas like Death Gulch or caves. You can't smell this one, so it can "sneak up" on you. Places that tend to accumulate this stuff include Poison Spring, Poison Cave, and the Stygian Caves - oh, look, warning label names again.

The only human death (there are a lots of animal deaths from this) that might have been caused, at least in part, by these gases, was along the Stinkingwater River (that ominous name thing, again) where a dead body was found in a hot spring. The scenario suggests that the victim was bathing in the pool and died, possibly from a local concentration of the odorous gasses that gave the river its name. Or from the hot spring. Or something else. It's not possible at this distance in time to make that determination. However, there have been a number of near-misses involving poison or asphyxiant gasses in Yellowstone, and there certainly have been fatalities in areas near to the park, usually involving mining or digging holes. In one case unhealthy gasses leaked into a residential basement, but that was not a fatality, just damn scary.

These are less cases of stupidity than just dumb luck. After all, you can't see these clouds of doom, they are often transient so an area may be safe most of the time but not always, and some of the occurrences are freakish - one near-death incident involved a road crew digging holes - the one hole filled up with potentially lethal hydrogen cyanide AND quantities of carbon dioxide, but the holes adjacent to it, less than four meters away, had no signs of these. This is not something predictable.

Again:
- Warning signs are for everyone, yes, including you.
- Stay out of caves
- Quite a few of the above-ground hazard areas like Death Gulch are known at this point (see rule about warning signs), but if you're concerned stay out of low lying/confined areas.

Broomstick wrote:Yellowstone is, as we all know, volcanic. One feature of volcanos is outgassing of toxic vapors. The two most common such gasses found in Yellowstone are hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs and is quite toxic. Fortunately, human noses can detect this at absurdly low concentrations, well before it's thick enough to kill you - assuming, of course, you're smart enough to leave an area with the odor is getting stronger before it gets dangerous.

Unfortunately, by the time Hydrogen Sulphide gets close to dangerous concentrations, you can't smell it any more because your nose's "detect this particular smell" nerves have been overloaded and numbed — in the time it takes for your nose to recover, the rest of you won't.

First learned that from a chemistry teacher at school, I think he'd been explaining why that particular experiment was done in the sink nearest an open window, with a big fan blowing out.

That is a conundrum... unless, as I say, you know to leave the area while you can still smell rotten eggs.

In case it's not obvious, a lot of this review is really "things I learned from this book".

I finished the bear chapter.

What I Learned About Bears
- Warning signs apply to everyone, yes, even you. Seriously, this is a repeating theme in this book. The Rangers do monitor bear activity and do post signs, warnings, issue verbal warnings. There is a REASON they're telling you about where the bears are. It's so you don't go there.
- If the nice rangers suggest carrying bear spray then do so. This is basically the same self-defense spray you use on human muggers, but about 10 times more powerful. (I got that information from researching outside the book) You can RENT a can of this stuff in Yellowstone so you don't even have to purchase it (because what are you going to do with a can of bear spray in most places, right?). Use it properly, though - improper use can attract bears!
- There are places in Yellowstone were overnight camping are forbidden. This might well be due to a bear eating someone recently, so don't camp overnight in those locations. These locations can change from time to time due to bears being mobile creatures so check with the rangers every visit.
- Do not approach bears
- Do not feed bears
- Do not approaching feeding bears
- Do not approach bear cubs or cubs with bears
- If you are charged by a bear do not climb a tree. The bear will either follow you up, or simply knock down the tree with you in it. Either way, you're not escaping.
- Apparently playing dead CAN save your life. Especially if cubs are involved. Dead things are no threat to bear cubs so mama bear might well lose interest in you and return to tending the cubs. Not 100% guarantee, and there's the whole problem of not screaming while something is trying to eat you. Really best to avoid these situations if possible.
- Although there are National Parks in the US where you can carry a gun, having a gun, even a big motherfucker of a gun, will not guarantee your survival if you are attacked by a bear. More than one person killed by bears in the Yellowstone area have been killed after shooting the bear. Apparently, getting shot really pisses them off and makes the whole thing personal or something.
- Do not hike alone in bear country. One human vs. one bear is overwhelmingly in favor of the bear. In fact, the author recommends hiking in groups of more than two people and states he prefers four as a minimum.
- Do not camp alone in bear country.
- Do not keep quiet, make LOTS of noise.

With all that, the number of bear attacks and/or killings in the Yellowstone area is actually surprisingly low. The place is loaded with both bears and people. Bears are not normally aggressive - that's actually a problem sometimes - and will generally leave people alone given a chance. Usually. There are exceptions. A very, very few bears have apparently hunted and eaten people, but it's usually injured or crippled animals that are likely in chronic pain, making them very grouchy, and unable to hunt other more dangerous things easily or compete with other bears when scavenging. Mostly, it's either a mother bear with cubs, or someone has done something stupid around the bears.

Another interesting thing is that, apparently, a group of humans screeching like a mob of howler monkeys and throwing sticks and stuff is sufficient to drive off most bears. If the mob of poo-flinging monkeys group of humans is large enough. Bears can apparently count and will not take on large groups.

There have been seven documented people killed by bears in Yellowstone. That's really not that many when you consider that in the same time span nearly three times that number of people have been killed by falling into boiling water, or about the same number as killed by lightning. That makes it no less horrific when it does happen. It's not unusual for the bear to eat part or most of the victim, and, being animals, they don't bother to check whether or not you're dead first prior to eating. One of the more macabre scenes described in the book was when the rangers went to look for a missing bear attack victim and came upon the corpse. There were several bears chowing down, and a number of other animals waiting their turn - the coyotes, then the ravens, then the crows and magpies... Hey, it's a Yellowstone buffet line! Don't be the main course. This is life and death and dinner in the wild, isn't it awesome?

Broomstick wrote:- If you are charged by a bear do not climb a tree. The bear will either follow you up, or simply knock down the tree with you in it.

This one just gave me a bit of a mental car crash; ever hear the one about telling the difference between an approaching-with-possibly-hostile-intent brown bear and a grizzly?

Climb a tree. If the bear follows you up and eats you, it's a brown bear. If it knocks the tree down and eats you, it's a grizzly.

(Drat, I was going to use spoiler tags instead of tiny text, but it's broken again.)

Broomstick wrote:Dining on Death: There are many edible wild plants in Yellowstone. There are also a few deadly ones. The toxic mushrooms having "warning label" names for the most part: death cap, destroying angel, deadly conocybe, deadly cort, deadly galerina... the conifer false morel has a comparatively benign name, except that the word "false" implies that this is not the morel you are looking for... There are no documented deaths from mushrooms in Yellowstone, although it could be that someone gathered toxic mushroom, left the park, ate them elsewhere and died outside the park statistical collection.

There is also the death camas - hey there's that word "death" again! - but again, no documented deaths in Yellowstone from eating it. Documented deaths from eating it elsewhere, both humans and livestock.

The one plant that has definitely killed people in Yellowstone is water hemlock. The big problem with this one is that it very much resembles wild carrots or parsnips. It is, in fact, related to both of those. It also has the word "hemlock" in the name. People who have survived eating these have described hours and hours of uncontrollable vomiting, shitting, muscle spasms, and convulsions. Those who die suffer the same only much worse. You really don't want to do this. This is another one that might well result in fatalities away from the park when people gather wild edibles (or think they did) and eat them later.

In sum: In camping outdoors, as well as in all other aspects of life, it's best to follow this one simple rule: If you don't know, don't touch! And, if you think you know, you almost certainly don't know.

Death by Lightning
Five documented deaths in the park from lightning - meaning you're only slightly more likely to be attacked by a bear than a bolt from the blue. The thing is, this hazard isn't really any different in the park than elsewhere.

- Don't shelter under a tree during a storm
- Don't hang out on high ridge lines and the like during a storm
- Don't shelter under a tree on the top of a ridge line during a storm
- And sometimes you just get zapped anyhow.

Next chapter is "Lying in the Snow", which is about all the ways cold can kill you in Yellowstone. Gee, what do you think happened at Snowslide Creek to earn it that name...?

A slight continuation of the prior post...

Guess what Electric Peak is known for... bwa-ha-HA! Actually, not just lightning strikes, but also accumulations of static electrical charges that make peoples' hair stand on end and stuff. Not a place you want to stand during a storm.

Killing Cold and Sliding Snow:
There are several ways that winter can kill you in Yellowstone. First, there just simply freezing to death. Winter temperatures in Yellowstone can plunge to -50C. They don't do that every year, but it does happen and a certain number of people have, plain and simple, died from becoming too cold. Sometimes, the details of their demise are unknown, they're simply found during or after the spring thaw. Sometimes people dead of other mis-adventure in winter can't be found, having landed in deep snow, and searches have been called off with hopes of the body turning up several months later.

Deaths from cold increased after 1970 because that's when the park started keeping a hotel open in winter for tourists, so... more people in the park in winter, more deaths. Snowshoeing, skiing, snowmobiles... all fun, but if something breaks down things could get ugly very quickly. Needless to say, doing these things alone in the winter is just as foolish as summertime solo adventures.

As happens all too often with accidents, alcohol is involved in many of the cold-deaths in the park. Sure... getting drunk then going home in extreme cold, maybe some snow, in the dark, in the wilderness.... hold my beer and watch this! Add in hungry wildlife, cliffs to fall off, canyons to fall in, and various geothermal hazards it's sort of a wonder the death toll isn't higher. But a lot of drunks simply got lost or fell off the horse or sleigh or whatever, or all of the above, and froze to death in the cold.

Oh - about vertical real estate.... see, slopes+snow=avalanches, and Yellowstone certainly gets them. In a very American approach rangers will actually shoot hillsides to trigger slides when people aren't around, in hopes that they won't happen when people are around. However, Yellowstone is a very big place for a park (nearly 9,000 square kilometers), about the size of Cyprus or Puerto Rico and it's impossible to control every part of it's rugged terrain that is kept, for the most part, deliberately wild. Whether you're hiking/skiing/whatever at the top or bottom or middle of a hill, ridge, slope, mountain, canyon, whatever you risk avalanches. As I said, how do you think Snowslide Creek got it's name? (Christ Martin, February 17, 1904, body recovered in April and reburied at the military cemetery in Mammoth).

Special note for our Finnish friends: first documented death by avalanche in Yellowstone (I'm sure there were earlier ones, we just don't have paperwork for them ) was a Finn who went by the name Jacob Hess (huh... sounds Finnish? Also described by one account as a "Russian Finlander") in 1884. After getting good and drunk in Gardiner Hess and six buddies were sleighing back to Mammoth Hot Springs when an avalanche overturned them, the sleigh, and the horse. When everything came to a halt four of them got themselves out of the snow, dug two of the others out in time, but didn't get to Hess before he suffocated under the snow. Which, for being in the middle of the night in the wilderness with everyone drunk off their ass probably wasn't the worst possible outcome but still too bad for Hess.

In 1894 a gentleman died from an avalanche on Electric Peak rather than a lightning strike - really, Yellowstone features a lot of places with multiple hazards.

In 1896 one guy apparently just went batshit - a hotel employee started drinking heavily one night and staggered out into the snow with inadequate clothing. He was found five days later sitting half naked on a log frozen solid. Really, mental health problems are nothing new in the world. That happened at the end of April - winter lasts a long time in Yellowstone.

After a half dozen soldiers froze to death at one time or another the US Army starting forbidding their guys from going anywhere alone (Yellowstone had several military outposts nearby). Still happened from time to time. While most of them survived the experience not all of them did.

The book had a photograph from a 1904 magazine article showing a retrieved body being "transported" to it's final resting place. The guy had frozen solid and they were dragging him like a log through the snow. Very undignified, but probably about as efficient as possible in backcountry prior to motorized vehicles.

Of course, people being what they are, there was at least one instance where a group retrieving a body stopped for the night at a cabin and wound up propping the stiff upright at the card table and dealing him a hand. Or so those (living people) involved swore.

The thing is, quite a few of the folks killed by winter were NOT drunk, did not encounter an avalanche, were well equipped, highly experienced in Yellowstone (sometimes being a decades-long resident), and basically weren't acting foolishly... but the cold still killed them. Or at least what killed them left them in the cold.

Even traveling in a group is no guarantee - a group of 16 snowmobilers managed to get caught in a blizzard at night in 1971. The wind got bad enough to snap a windshield off one of the snowmobiles, and all the machines eventually sputtered to a halt, having iced up in freezing rain. The group of 16 fragmented, and while some of them broke into a park restaurant for shelter and food (they broke into vending machines) not everyone survived the night.

Several researchers have also come to grief in the cold as well over the years, including a wildlife researcher and the park geothermal expert in 1997. Actually, the geothermal guy was, arguably, doing things right and even brought along company so he wouldn't be traveling alone. Both people were lost in an avalanche.

Swallowed by the Earth
One recorded death by a "cave in" - not a snowslide but a landslide. In 1907 an embankment broke loose and buried an employee of the park engineering department.

Death From Above
Basically, falling rocks. Sometimes it's rocks dislodged by wildlife, or earthquakes, or whatever but a disturbing number of incidents arise from tourist throwing stuff off cliffs or into canyons. People, don't do this - it's bad for the people down below. Unfortunately, a lot of these involve kids as either the perpetrators, the victims, or both. It's actually a Federal crime to throw stuff from heights in national parks in the US, in large part due to such incidents.

Of course, for "extra points" some people combine rock-tossing with illegal climbing and/or alcohol. So far, no one has achieved the trifecta of getting stinking-ass drunk, climbing where they aren't supposed to, falling off, then hit on the bottom by dislodged rocks but it wouldn't surprise me to hear about such an incident.

Broomstick wrote: "Russian Finlander") in 1884.

In 1884, FInland was still a grand duchy within the Russian Empire. Hess sounds like he may have been the son of at least minor nobility(some of the Russian nobility were of German descent).

Sounds like an awesome book, though it appears some of this stuff like Colters Hell isn't in the actual Yellowstone park, so the book is also doing the exact same thing that gave us the BERMUDA TRIANGLE fable. Just start casting a wider and wider net...and don't tell anyone, while attributing DEATH to the same common area

There is Yellowstone Park, which has a very defined boundary, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and "nearby". The author is actually pretty careful and precise which deaths occur inside the park boundaries and which aren't. Things like geothermal springs and landslides aren't just limited to the park boundaries but the general area.

Some of the hazards occur in any wilderness area (freezing to death, for example), some in any wilderness are in North America (bears), and some are unique to the region or nearly so (geysers, etc.)

The author is considerably more precise about locations than i've been, in no small part because he's lived and worked in Yellowstone for decades and I've never been there.

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:

Broomstick wrote: "Russian Finlander") in 1884.

In 1884, FInland was still a grand duchy within the Russian Empire. Hess sounds like he may have been the son of at least minor nobility(some of the Russian nobility were of German descent).

We should also remember that pretty much all "finnish" nobles were of swedish decent (and those that weren't took a swedish name when they accended), in fact well into the era of indepence any Finn wealthy enough to visit Yellowstone would have been member of the swedish speaking minority, since finnish speakers were middle class at most. (that's not to say there weren't swedish speakers that weren't wealthy or nobility my maternal grandmother's family was from west coast near Turku and not particurally wealthy).

the dominance of swedish speakers in the finnish society didn't start to change until universal voting was implimented and the much large finnish speaking part a got a signifigant say on things.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Sounds like an awesome book, though it appears some of this stuff like Colters Hell isn't in the actual Yellowstone park, so the book is also doing the exact same thing that gave us the BERMUDA TRIANGLE fable. Just start casting a wider and wider net...and don't tell anyone, while attributing DEATH to the same common area

I also wanted to add to this - the author also makes it clear that the VAST majority of these deaths are due to the victim doing something they shouldn't, and, aside from young children, all of those people should know better.

In the my current chapter, for instance, there is a spot overlooking the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (not THE Grand Canyon, but still a big canyon) where no less than 6 people have slipped off the rocks and plunged to their deaths. Every single one of those people deliberately climbed over a retaining wall to get to that hazardous spot. Warning signs in Yellowstone can be very explicit:




Some of the signs are large due to having warnings in multiple languages for the safety of international visitors:



It's not like there are no warnings. Yet people ignore them, or even openly defy them. There are some deaths that are just plain bad luck, people do everything correctly but fate is a motherfucker to them. Most, though, were not minding their safety when injured or killed. That's really the take-away - don't fuck around in the wilderness, obey the warnings, stay on the trail. Do that you'll almost certainly have a wonderful trip, probably at no greater risk than driving down a freeway in a civilized area.

People tend not to think that those signs apply to them, that they're special, and don't have to obey the same rules as everyone else. And, thus, accidents, avoidable deaths, and this year's Presidential elections happen.

Lord Revan wrote:

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:

Broomstick wrote: "Russian Finlander") in 1884.

In 1884, FInland was still a grand duchy within the Russian Empire. Hess sounds like he may have been the son of at least minor nobility(some of the Russian nobility were of German descent).

We should also remember that pretty much all "finnish" nobles were of swedish decent (and those that weren't took a swedish name when they accended), in fact well into the era of indepence any Finn wealthy enough to visit Yellowstone would have been member of the swedish speaking minority, since finnish speakers were middle class at most. (that's not to say there weren't swedish speakers that weren't wealthy or nobility my maternal grandmother's family was from west coast near Turku and not particurally wealthy).

the dominance of swedish speakers in the finnish society didn't start to change until universal voting was implimented and the much large finnish speaking part a got a signifigant say on things.

Hess could be a Swedish name, and I'm embarassed to say I completely forgot about the Swedish influence on Finnish culture, even though that's a prominent theme in Finnish history. In fact, the Finnish Coastal Jaegers(their marine corps) include personnel of Swedish descent to the present day.

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:
In 1884, FInland was still a grand duchy within the Russian Empire. Hess sounds like he may have been the son of at least minor nobility(some of the Russian nobility were of German descent).

We should also remember that pretty much all "finnish" nobles were of swedish decent (and those that weren't took a swedish name when they accended), in fact well into the era of indepence any Finn wealthy enough to visit Yellowstone would have been member of the swedish speaking minority, since finnish speakers were middle class at most. (that's not to say there weren't swedish speakers that weren't wealthy or nobility my maternal grandmother's family was from west coast near Turku and not particurally wealthy).

the dominance of swedish speakers in the finnish society didn't start to change until universal voting was implimented and the much large finnish speaking part a got a signifigant say on things.

Hess could be a Swedish name, and I'm embarassed to say I completely forgot about the Swedish influence on Finnish culture, even though that's a prominent theme in Finnish history. In fact, the Finnish Coastal Jaegers(their marine corps) include personnel of Swedish descent to the present day.

prominent is one way of putting it, we were part of Sweden longer then we were a part of Russia (from about 1200 or so until the early 19th century for Sweden and from early 19th century until 1917 for Russia).

Trees
Aside from the potential for trees anywhere to fall over and crush someone with the misfortunate to be under them at the time, Yellowstone contains an abundance of lodgepole pine, which are tall trees with shallow root systems. They fall over easier than oaks, maples, and so forth.

Yellowstone has never been extensively logged, certainly not as a commercial operation, but park buildings and facilities were built with local timber and regrettably some of the lumberjacks doing this work were killed by falling trees. That, however, is an occupational hazard, not a tourist hazard.

Yellowstone experiences windstorms from time to time, which can knock down extensive swaths of trees (those shallow lodgepole pines in particular) This is bad for any tourists out in the park at the time. Really, bad weather in Yellowstone is a good reason to get inside a real building if you can. In 1992 a windstorm knocked over nearly 200 pines in 15 minutes. This is not something I'd want to experience up close and personal. Fortunately, no one was killed in that particular storm.

One death-by-trees that had a strong effect on Yellowstone was that of Stephen Athan in 1966. Athan's estate sued, basically saying his death was the Park Service's fault for having trees in a National Park. There's a fine line between cutting down any and every tree that poses the least hazard, and leaving the park in a natural state. It's not helped by people tramping in large numbers in campgrounds, which can adversely affect the trees whose roots are compressed, and the abuse heaped on trees by tourists with sharp objects carving them up and other forms of tree abuse. In some places the problem has been "solved" by cutting down every tree in a campground. This displeases other people, who would like to camp under trees or at least near them.

That said, there are no records of people dying from falling out of trees, or attempting to do some amteur tree-felling at campsites. This seems to be a category that largely falls under bad luck than visitor stupidity.

The next chapter is Fatal Attraction: Death From Falls. Not quite finished with it, but it opens in spectacular fashion with a gentleman, with his wife as passenger, managing to back his car over the edge of a cliff while trying to extract himself from a parking space. This occurred in 1934 when most cars arguably did require more strength and skill to steer than they do nowadays, but seriously, use of caution while driving in mountainous areas is always a good idea. It's hard to say what, exactly, lead to this accident as both direct witnesses did not survive the initial fall, much less the bounces into the bottom of the canyon they had been admiring only minutes before. The car bounced once but the former occupants kept going for a couple more bounces past when the car stopped moving. The couple traveled about 250 vertical meters before they came to a rest. The same sorts of rangers who would take frozen dudes and deal them into a hand of poker and dealt matter-of-factly with people killed and partially eaten by wildlife described the bodies from this accident as "horribly mangled" and really, that's enough detail for my curiousity. The final verdict was that this was caused by inexperience (presumably at driving in mountainous areas) and carelessness.

My thought was about traveling through the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee for the first time and wondering how the hell that occasional car you could see lodged up in a tree got there. Mystery solved when driving higher up the mountain and observing either violently-made gaps in the guard rails or obvious patches. Cars are not airplanes, they do not fly.

There have been a few occupational deaths involving workmen falling from scaffolding during construction or roof work on park facilities.

Part of the problem of analysing fall deaths is that there aren't always witnesses. A father and son were on a bridge, then later found dead in the canyon below the bridge, but no one is quite sure how the two of them came to fall. Accident? Suicide? Murder? Goofing around gone bad? Impossible to know.

However, common factors in what may have been avoidable deaths from falls include:
- leaving the trail/ignoring warning signs (again!)
- climbing over retaining walls/guardrails
- photography (people get distracted trying to get the perfect shot then aaaaiiiiIIIEIEEEEEE!)
- poor foot gear - folks, you don't want slick-sole shoes or flip-flops/thongs. Wear something with treads.
- alcohol
- swimming in rivers above waterfalls
- possible suicides

About swimming in rivers - not a good idea. Nevermind the Firehole with its literally boiling hotsprings, other rivers have waterfalls. In 1973 a French woman disobeyed warning signs, went for a swim in the Yellowstone River above the first set of falls, was seen to be struggling as she was swept over, water seen floating face-down in the river by other witnesses above the second set of falls (no one attempted to go in at that point after her, which was probably a good idea for their own safety), and was swept over those as well, thereby becoming the only person known to have gone over both sets of Yellowstone falls. Whether she drowned or was killed by the first fall of 35 meters is anyone's guess, but she certainly was dead after the second, 100 meter fall.

A couple of falls after 1970 occurred in winter - all the fun of steep landscape which you have year-round combined with slippery ice and snow. Not a good combination. The first of these was a kid who ran ahead of his family and found he could not stop and went sailing over a railing into the Lower Falls and their 100 meter drop. The ranger who got to retrieve his body did so by dangling from a helicopter in the spray of a waterfall in February. That was probably not a fun day at work.

So... exercise caution around cliff and drop-offs, only swim in designated swimming areas, obey warnings, respect fences. Also, no photo is worth your life.

Me, I'm not afraid of heights but I have a LOT of respect for them. On the edge of a cliff I like a nice, sturdy guardrail to hold onto. Because stuff happens. And I don't like falling. My open-cockpit airplanes used to have very hefty seat harnesses to make me feel nice and secure, cliffsides don't have that.

Broomstick wrote:Trees
Aside from the potential for trees anywhere to fall over and crush someone with the misfortunate to be under them at the time, Yellowstone contains an abundance of lodgepole pine, which are tall trees with shallow root systems. They fall over easier than oaks, maples, and so forth.

Many don't realize it, but this is also a common hazard for hunter-gatherers and so on, with "hit by a tree" being one of the leading causes of death. Because when you live in a forest and walk around in it for hours a day all the time... the odds add up.

Simon_Jester wrote:

Broomstick wrote:Trees
Aside from the potential for trees anywhere to fall over and crush someone with the misfortunate to be under them at the time, Yellowstone contains an abundance of lodgepole pine, which are tall trees with shallow root systems. They fall over easier than oaks, maples, and so forth.

Many don't realize it, but this is also a common hazard for hunter-gatherers and so on, with "hit by a tree" being one of the leading causes of death. Because when you live in a forest and walk around in it for hours a day all the time... the odds add up.

I gotta wonder about that. Is it being hit by an actual falling tree itself, or is it more likely hit by falling branches, or falling out of trees?

It's from the opposite side of the world, but supposedly the folks in the Highlands of New Guinea never willingly camp overnight under trees due to falling tree hazards.

The biggest danger is entire trees falling down which can kill you even if you're in a building if they're large enough and take out the roof. Large branches can likewise be hazardous, particularly when falling from great heights. Falling out of trees seems much less a problem as really not that many people really do much tree climbing, especially once adult.

I do suspect falling hazards in general are more common than entire trees, but certainly whole trees do fall on occasion.

I'd argue that in the more primitive hunter-gathering cultures though you see a reasonable amount of tree climbing to recover food and go after animals, that kind of thing. But it's probably a few select people out of the family group, so yeah.

It would be the young, strong and healthy who do such climbing, whereas falling trees can land on anyone. Certainly, demographic factors work into one's particular risk, but some risks are more evenly distributed among people in general.

Elheru Aran wrote:I do suspect falling hazards in general are more common than entire trees, but certainly whole trees do fall on occasion.

We've had campers killed by both falling trees and lighting strikes while sleeping within 50 miles of Philadelphia within the last decade. Pretty damn urban area we have around here..... Risk never goes away.

I'd argue that in the more primitive hunter-gathering cultures though you see a reasonable amount of tree climbing to recover food and go after animals, that kind of thing. But it's probably a few select people out of the family group, so yeah.

Attrition in cultures like that would be very high, plain and simple. That's why it took so damn long to start to get large sustained human populations. Learning to manage risk without writing isn't easy. We may well (almost certainly) have needed a serious amount of actual genetic instinctual evolution long after we became homo sapians to do this. Heck, to even start to do this. Humans are interesting things, we don't like to think of ourselves as instinct drive, and yet babies are born with an instinct not to fall off high places, to the point that they resist moving onto transparent surfaces.