Pros: Interesting, if somewhat grisly. Heavily documented.
Cons: Gets to be a bit much. Quality of stories varies.
The Bottom Line:
Highly popular Yellowstone National Park has a dark side with hundreds of deaths having ocurred in the park. It's a dark but somehow interesting part of the park's history.
trailhound's Full Review: Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness ...
Yellowstone National Park is on my ''bucket list'' – one of those places I plan to see before kicking the bucket. I just hope I don't kick the bucket while at Yellowstone, although I would have lots of company if I did. In Death in Yellowstone, author Lee Whittlesey digs up nearly every human death that has occurred in the park and has compiled a sort of a dark compendium of the park's history.
Death in Yellowstone is arranged in two broad categories of human deaths in the park: Death by Nature and Death by Man. These are broken down into smaller chapters (the length of which varies greatly) and an occasional photograph or drawing thrown in. Deaths from automobile accidents and natural causes have been omitted entirely.
The first chapter in the book is perhaps the most grisly because it deals with deaths in that have occurred in the natural hot springs in the park. The bubbling, simmering pools of water may look attractive but are extremely hazardous. While most of the deaths are due to accidents, a few people have actually dived into the near-boiling pools and were promptly cooked to death!
Deaths from wild animal attacks are quite rare in Yellowstone, but they do occur from time to time. Perhaps the most frightening is the case of a Swiss backpacker who was camping in the backcountry in 1984. When she didn’t return, park rangers went looking for her and discovered a grizzly bear had inexplicably dragged her from her tent and had eaten about half of her. That bear was never found either.
Deaths from drowning and falls are far more common that bear attacks though. The author shows in his stories how many of these accidental deaths were quite avoidable. Visitors to the park sometimes ignore warning signs or don't realize how hazardous the waters are due to depth, coldness, currents, or sudden storms. In one tragic event in 1973 an overloaded canoe containing Boy Scouts overturned and four died from drowning. In more than a few cases boaters and swimmers have simply disappeared and are presumed drowned.
If you get tired of reading about deaths in the park from lightning, eating poisonous plants, and freezing to death, the latter half of the book may appeal to you. Murders, Indian attacks, fights, and arson have all claimed the lives of people visiting Yellowstone Park. While these deaths are fairly infrequent, they do occur, and I recently read a newspaper article about an increase in suicides in parks like Yellowstone.
Lee Whittlesey's book on deaths within Yellowstone is heavily footnoted and documented. If he is uncertain about the occurrence of an event he'll say so. Also, the author has taken care not to make light of these deaths, even though some people have done some incredibly stupid things (like walking up to the very edge of a very high cliff) that has led to their demise.
The drawback of this kind of Death in Yellowstone is it gets rather ghastly to read about one death after another. And some of the instances happen so long ago that it's hard to even confirm what happen. Also, the depth of each story varies quite a bit.
In some cases there are a lot of background details, such as a story about a wildlife photographer who was attacked by a grizzly. But in other cases the person's death was barely a footnote in a weekly newspaper. Overall I'll rate this book as 3 stars are recommend it to anyone with an interest in the rather dark side of Yellowstone Park, or anyone who needs a stern reminder about how many hazards exist in nature.
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