Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park

by Lee H. Whittlesey

The chilling tome that launched an entire genre of books about the often gruesome but always tragic ways people have died in our national parks, this updated edition of the classic includes calamities in Yellowstone from the past sixteen years, including the infamous grizzly bear attacks in the summer of 2011 as well as a fatal hot springs accident in 2000. In these accounts, written with sensitivity as cautionary tales about what to do and what not to do in one of our wildest national parks, Whittlesey recounts deaths ranging from tragedy to folly—from being caught in a freak avalanche to the goring of a photographer who just got a little too close to a bison. Armchair travelers and park visitors alike will be fascinated by this important book detailing the dangers awaiting in our first national park.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Nature, Travel, Audiobook, True Crime, Outdoors

Audible Audio

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

Lee Whittlesey’s thirty-five-year studies in the history of the Yellowstone region have made him an expert on Yellowstone’s vast literature and have resulted in numerous publications. He is the author, co-author, or editor of eight books and more than twenty-five journal articles, including: A Yellowstone Album: A Photographic Celebration of the First National Park; Death in Yellowstone; Lost in the Yellowstone (with Truman Everts); Yellowstone Place Names, and the voluminous Wonderland Nomenclature (2,123 pages). Another book in which (Dr.) Paul Schullery joins him as co-author is Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park (University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Their book A History of Large Mammals of the Yellowstone Region, 1806-1883 is also forthcoming.

Whittlesey has a master’s degree in history from Montana State University and a law degree (Juris Doctor) from the University of Oklahoma. On May 19, 2001, because of his extensive writings and long contributions to Yellowstone National Park, Idaho State University conferred upon him an Honorary Doctorate of Science and Humane Letters. Since 1996, he has been an adjunct professor of history at Montana State University.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book has a fantastic title. i love the word-choice of "foolhardiness", and i thought i would really enjoy reading a book about people doing stupid things and paying for them with their liiiiives. which i think makes me a bad person, but since a lot of these deaths take place in the 1800's, there is enough distance that it makes it less of a character flaw in me, and more of an abiding interest in historical circumstances. is what i am telling myself. but lee h. whittlesey is not going to be stealing the crown of "king of narrative nonfiction" from erik larson anytime soon. this doesn't read like a book anyone would want to curl up with - it is more just a sort of social archive - a list of things that have happened within the park with no authorial voice or unifying thread.

there are basically two points. one: nature is wild, and yellowstone is not disney. it is not and should not be retrofitted to play nice with the tourists. and two: don't be an idiot.

this is a breakdown of the chapters, and ways people have died in yellowstone, in my own words:

hot springs
animals
poisonous plants
poisonous gas
lightning
avalanches and freezing
cave-ins
falling rocks
falling trees
falls
forest fires
earthquakes
drowning
indian battles
fights
diving
horse,wagon,stagecoach
shootings
murders
suicide
missing/presumed dead
gas stove explosions and structural fires
carbon monoxide poisoning
air/road accidents

so basically, it is another book that assures me that i should never ever leave my house. ever.

i am not someone who is overmuch impressed with the majesty of nature. nor of the majesty of architecture, for that matter. when i find myself in distant lands, my first thought is, "where is the closest bookstore?" and "food!! gimmie exotic food!" so the thought of going to a place to just be inspired by nature's vast canvas - i can see how people would dig it, but i am not one of them.

and while dying from many of the ways listed in the above chapters can be avoided by a sane person (yes, a photo of your toddler sitting astride a bear would be adorable, but usually you are just going to end up with a picture of the day your kid got torn to ribbons by your "foolhardiness") and (do not jump into a hot spring with a temperature of 202 degrees F to rescue your dog because your eyeballs will boil, your skin will slough off of you, your last words will be "that was a stupid thing i did," and your dog will still be dead), still there are many potential deaths over which you have no control. and why?? because people are idiots. you would think, wouldn't you, that being in all that open space would somehow be safer than living in a city where people push people off of subway platforms and mug people at knifepoint and get into scuffles on the sidewalk because people weren't meant to live that close together, but you would be wrong. people will find a way to be idiots no matter where they are, and these two situations are illustrative of that:

In two such other cases, deaths can be attributed to persons on the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone purposefully throwing or accidentally dislodging rocks that fell onto persons below.

and

In the near-darkness at Eagle Creek campground, just north of Gardiner, the two saw a yellow tent belonging to Shannon Weatherly, 28, and a male friend. Schultz and Keys said later they thought the tent was a bear, and Schultz fired into it. His bullet struck Shannon in the head, killing her instantly and terrifying her friend.

so you could be doing all the right things - camping where you are supposed to be, enjoying a nature hike with your water bottles and granola treats and BLAMMO! some stupid kid throws a rock from way up above you and your head is caved in and bleeding into your thermal shirt. or you could be sleeping off your long day of respectful nature-observing and BLAMMO!! someone thinks your TENT is a BEAR. which i guess means it should be shot?

people are stupid. how we managed to evolve enough to build airplanes and bridges is beyond me.

your risk of dying in an indian battle or stagecoach accident are, admittedly, slim, but lightning, falling trees, earthquakes… you can't prevent this shit from happening.

but some of them. some of them, you can prevent as long as you are not a fool. like eating plants in yellowstone. seriously, why?? why??

like water hemlock.

do not eat this.



Six children found the plant growing along a stream and ate "greedily" of it, thinking it a parsnip.

but i guess it's hard, because what kid doesn't go just crazy for parsnips, right?

My own rules for eating plants in Yellowstone are threefold: never eat wild mushrooms, never eat plants that resemble wild carrots or parsnips, and more generally, never eat any plant unless you are positive of what it is by virtue of specific training.

my own rules are way more simple: pack twinkies.

oh, and don't be terrible at being a boy scout:

The scouts of troop 63 stopped at the outlet of the lake in order that leaders Layne Reynolds and John Bishoff could locate their assigned campsite. Imprudently, the party had not brought a map along, but they nevertheless decided that their camp lay directly across Shoshone Lake, probably an hour's paddling.

what boy scout troop doesn't bring a map?? seriously - that's just "be prepared 101."

and while this book was mostly very dry and plodding, there were occasional refreshing bursts of awesome, which is my word for "ewwww!"

Mr. D.E. MacKay, a sixtyish gentleman from New York, jumped from the careening vehicle at the first hint of danger. Unfortunately for him, he landed hard with his feet far apart, and the force drove the bones of his legs up into his body and lacerated his bladder. Then the caroming coach fell foursquare upon him.

he is later described as having been telescoped against the rocks.

awesome. (ew)

and i will just leave you with this - further proof that ladies with little dogs are usually the worst at taking responsibility for anything and although this makes me sad in my doggy-love parts, i still think the doggy ended up in a better place than being owned by this nightmare of a human:

"May I release my dog from his leash?" she asked. "No, ma'am," said the ranger deferentially. "It's strictly against the rules."

"There seem to be rules against everything one wants to do in this park," she said with a petulant frown. "Now what possible reason can there be for not allowing my dog a little freedom? Poor Von has been tied up all day!"

The ranger's strict training kept him from saying what he wanted to, but his face reddened at her tone. He began, "Lady, there are bears around here that might…"

She did not give him a chance to finish the sentence. "Oh, if that's all that worries you, Von won't hurt the bears!"

She reached for the snap on the dog's collar and unleashed him before the startled ranger could utter another word of protest.
The dog headed straight for an old black bear mother sitting at the edge of the forest some fifty years away, her two cubs above her in a tree, lying on two large limbs. The old bear sat there calmly, her front legs braced in front of her, not seeming to notice the dog that dashed madly toward her. She even inclined her head slightly the other way as if to show just how little this canine creature interested her.

The pup charged right up to the bear, fully expecting her to run. She sat motionless and he slowed for a quick turn to keep from running into her. At exactly that instant the old bear went into action. Quicker than a cat she struck out at him and with one blow of her paw sent him spinning with a broken back. Then she called her cubs down and hurried into the woods.

It happened so quickly that not one of the spectators moved for a few seconds. Then everyone rushed to the side of the dying dog, his owner protesting tearfully, "Why didn't you tell me? I can't understand why such terrible beasts are allowed to run at large. Why aren't they put in cages where they can do no harm?"

ugh. hate her.

special thanks to brian for sending me this book/knowing what a sicko i am, and reinforcing my resolve to never go anywhere. ever.

ever.

come to my blog!

[Jessaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thermal Pools and Bears

This may seem strange coming from a person that loves nature, but I was not totally impressed by Yellowstone. I didn’t like thermal pools, not even Old Faithfu, which was surrounded in cement. The Indians never really lived in Yellowstone. Why? The author didn’t say. My own belief is that they didn’t like the thermal pools either.
Now, don’t get me wrong, because coming into Yellowstone from Cody, you will see a lake of thermal poos, and they are beautiful. I have another reason for not liking them, and that is coming up.

I didn’t think that the country was all that beautiful either, but perhaps, I didn’t see it much since we only drove down the main road that went through the park. Now, the Tetons, I loved, just as I have always loved the beauty of Yosemite. Still, I have to say, there is nothing more beautiful than seeing a herd of buffalo or even wolves. The most spectacular thing I saw in Yellowstone was when we stopped to see what people were looking at. I got out of the car and crossed the road to ask what was happening. A man allowed me to look through his telescope, saying that a car had hit an elk, and five wolves and a bear had been fighting over it. When I saw the bear eating the elk and a white wolf nearby, I caught myself saying, “Wow! Oh, my God.” I wanted to stay there forever and watch, and I even wanted to walk up for a closer look. I hated nature shows because of these types of scenes, but seeing the real thing, well, it felt very different.

There were things that I noticed while driving through Yellowstone that caused me to buy this book. The first was a thermal pool the size of a child’s plastic swimming pool that was close to where we had parked. I stood looking at it in fear even though it had a rope around it to warn people of its danger. In my mind’s eye, I saw people falling into it. Hot boiling water that could kill a person.in an instant. I wanted nothing to do with it, and I was not even interested in taking a walk on a boardwalk over other larger bodies of thermal pools.

Next, my husband had to use the restroom, so we stopped at a much larger thermal pool where people had gathered to look. So, I got out of our car and went to look too. Before my husband could get back to the car, I had begun to feel ill and dizzy. I knew that it was from the fumes, so I headed back to the car, but just as I was reaching for the door handle, my legs began to buckle. I thought, “I am going to die.” I got inside the car just before falling, closed the door and rolled up the windows, and then I began to feel better. My husband came back to the car, and I said, “Let’s get out of here fast,” and told him what had happened. We drove away, me with a headache.

And last of all, we parked along the road where we saw people watching a herd of buffalo. We got out of the car to join them. Now these animals are not fenced in, and after a brief stay, one buffalo headed towards us, and when my husband saw that it was getting too close, he said, “Let’s get out of here before we can’t.” Others remained, even with their children.

We met my friend in Jackson Hole, just outside of Yellowstone, and she said that people are injured every year in Yellowstone. I only thought of bear attacks. And I was grateful that we had not seen bears on the road.

So, a Goodread’s friend had read this book, and now I have also. Sort of. It is sold in Yellowstone Park and should be a must read for anyone entering the park. As the country song goes, “People are crazy,” just as this book shows.Who would think to jump into a thermal pool after a dog that had just jumped in? Well, a man did just that. He dove in, and when they got him out his eyeballs were white, and his skin was peeling off in multiple layers. He died shortly after, after suffering for hours in pain. This reminded me of one of the Tibetan Buddhist hells or maybe that teaching came from Hinduism and made its way into Tibetan Buddhism. Anyway, I would not wish to be pulled out if I had fallen in. Death would come sooner. The chapter on this one subject when on and on, with people falling in when taking a photograph, with children running to jump into the pools, and all the other ways that people had fallen in to them, with all dying after getting pulled out. I repeat, I would not wish to be pulled out.

As for the buffalos, well, they are not cows, nor are they they for people to try to put their children on their backs in order to take a photo. They are not just wild, they are vicious. Then some people try to pet the bears. One woman fought with a ranger over having to keep her dog on a leash. “He will not harm the bear,” she stated. Then, instead of listening to him, she let him go right in front of the ranger. Her dog found a bear, and the bear found him. End of story.

The stories in this book were so gruesome, so horrifying , that I found my mind wandering in other directions. Then I found myself skipping pages and pages. I got what I needed out of it and then put the book down. A woman just wants to know that she was right, and I was right about Yellowstone, maybe not in its lack of beauty, but in its dangers. The best part of Yellowstone is its wolves, which bothered no one. They, at least, have the sense to stay away from thermal pools and people.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is limitless”--Flaubert

“Some folks require the park’s wildness and yet deny its right to exercise its wildness upon them.”--Lee Whittlesey

I am a teacher so tend not to upbraid people for ignorance, except when they seem persistent in it, or excessively proud of it, and stubborn, and threaten my very existence because of it. I’m tolerant of it with respect to, let’s say, grammar and pronunciation, but not to the extent of Sandy Hook, Holocaust and climate change denial and blind commitments to dangerous conspiracy theories. Sure, the Flat Earth Society is amusing, but not if people are going to die from this idiocy.

I am well aware that part of the problem with climate change is humankind’s being cut off from and ignorant about the natural world. I am not intending to sound all superior here, but my parents raised me to travel and camp outdoors, and to know the names and nature of flora and fauna. You don’t eat wild mushrooms or berries and so on. You don’t pet the bears. When I was in my late teens and twenties I didn’t want to go to Yellowstone because it was too popular, thus overpopulated in the summer, but it is amazing, a world wonder, and I get it; if people want to see one National Park and have never camped anywhere else, this is a likely place to see a lot of beauty because much of it can actually be viewed in close proximity to a road. I took small children there myself a few years ago and was thrilled by it. And was appalled by the trashing of the park, seeing dogs and children running loose, people walking off paths near geysers, and so on.

But when I go to the National Parks I actually read books/materials to prepare for that experience. I read the signs in the parks. I read the brochures. I know that Yellowstone is not Disneyland, and I can’t believe people would go there thinking that they can place their 3 year old children on bears or bison and expect them to live, and then blame the parks for their own willful ignorance. Every time I see an accidental death at the National Parks I shake my head and read it aloud from the news to my family.

So I was curious about Death in Yellowstone. I admit to a kind of fascination with the macabre. When I lived in Wisconsin I read and enjoyed/was horrified by Wisconsin Death Trip, about all the bizarre murders there from Ed Gein to Jeffrey Dahmer. Death in Yellowstone is less a set of rollicking yarns to guffaw at and more a kind of exhaustive catalogue of accidental death and downright stupidity. I’ll admit that I did not read all of it; it seems almost obsessively morbid to admit you did, actually.

The range of causes of death there is wide, (and he does not include in his accounting deaths from car accidents to heart attacks, which, since 4 million people a year go there, is a lot). The deaths mainly come from people "making mistakes" regarding hot springs, animals, poisonous plants and gas, weather (like freezing to death from unpreparedness), falling rocks, and drowning. And plenty of other stuff. The hot springs stories with boiled flesh are maybe the most gruesome, people literally diving in 250 degree hot springs. Okay, I'm not proud I read that chapter carefully and with morbid fascination. And the bear mauling chapter, okay, guilty, read it and shared stories with fam. You want to hear one, don't you?! Read some of the other reviews, particularly Karen's, so so good!!

The book strives for a balance between, on the one hand, ensuring visitor safety and preserving wilderness, and on the other hand, entertaining us with stories of massive ignorance that he knows full well will make us shake our heads and snort with laughter. He’s not the best nonfiction story writer, he's not a great storyteller or even writer, but I was distracted for awhile by it from all the other things that can kill me.

How to survive a bear attack:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articl...

A couple recent deaths in Yellowstone:

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/thing...

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park
by Lee H. Whittlesey

This was very interesting. It described deaths from way before it was a park. People who were living there before 1900. No Native Americans lived there, they were too smart! There are too many ways to accidentally die!
The ground crumbles, there wasn't any paths back then, steam made vision had to see the trail, gas from the vents, falling in was an almost sure death sentence or slow death.

Besides the many falls, many jumped in not understanding how hot 190 degrees really is! Boiled alive! Or a dog gets lose and they try to rescue the dog. There is always death by other people and a lot of suicide especially in the distant past. Must have been very hard back then because there were so many suicides.

There were fires, drowning, and other odd things too. It was sad but I just kept thinking about how hard it must of been. The newer ones was tragic too because some were kids. The water is pretty and doesn't look like death. One false move is all it takes.

[Archer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man from Brussels falls into a thermal pool and dies after his legs are boiled, later the small spring is renamed Belgian pool. A young man from Alabama camps illegally and is eaten by a bear.

This a chronicling of "accidents and foolhardiness", with the emphasis put by the author on foolhardiness. It's definitely morbid and the attitude towards the "fools" can be a bit disturbing, but there are some riveting stories here, and they are described in a refreshingly matter-of-fact way. You don't have to embellish too much when your subject matter is people being gored by bison or falling 800 feet to their death.


A side note: I bought this book as a calloused youth on a trip to Yellowstone in my early teens. A larger, louder, and rowdier boy had run past me on the boardwalk while I was walking along with my parents. I was jealous and a bit spiteful towards the reckless freedom of this other kid. Later on we saw him once again, but this time he was sitting on the side of the boardwalk, crying and clutching his bare feet, which were bright red. "Fool" I thought, and I bought this book.

[Anete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Autors ir pats ilgus gadus strādājis Jelovstonas parkā, un apkopojis informāciju par daudzajiem nāves gadījumiem, kuru iemesls nav bijis tik triviāla lieta, kā auto/moto avārija. Un veidi kā nomirt Jelovstonas parkā ir daudz un dažādi - termālie avoti, kas tevi uzvāra, bizoņu un lāču nenovērtēšana, nosalšana, noslīkšana, indīgu augu, sakņu apēšana, kritieni no liela augstuma, slepkavības, pašnāvības un daudzi citi.
Autors savācis ļoti apjomīgu informācijas daudzumu, ar interesantiem vēsturiskiem faktiem, stāstījums ir encikolpēdisks faktu izklāsts, pat ar iedalījumiem nāvju tipos, ar kādu autora iespraustu viedokli, par bēdīgu negadījumu vai sašutumu par cilvēku neapdomību un pat pārgalvību.
Secinājums viens - Jelovstonas parks ir mežonīga vieta, kurā nav vēlams zaudēt piesardzību, un pat tad, ja ievēro visus parka darbinieku norādījumus, vari būt neveiksmīgas sakritības upuris, un tev uz galvas var uzkrist akmenis. Dzīve ir īsa, uzmanīties ir nepieciešams, bet tomēr vajag arī dzīvot, un baudīt skaisto dabu!

[Melissa Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been dying to read this book every since I saw it in Yellowstone 16 years ago. When I was in college I saw this book in a bookshop, but my 21 year old self could not afford the almost $20 price tag. College kids be broke. When my husband and I decided to spend two weeks in Tetons and Yellowstone this summer I wasn't expecting to see this book again. Frankly I had forgotten about it. However, we can across it on our third day in Teton and you bet I grabbed it immediately. I'm giving this non-fiction history of the tragic and foolish deaths of Yellowstone a generous 4 stars. I've been reading it it out loud to my children for nearly two months and while it is very dry, it's also very entertaining. P.S. I waited until we got home from our trip to read this book. Which is a good thing too because it would have given my kids nightmares and made them want to stay in the tent....maybe.

Death in Yellowstone is broken up into two parts. Part one: Death by Nature (hot springs, bears, poisonous plants, lightning, avalanches, cave-ins, falling rocks/trees, falls off high points, forest fires, earthquakes and lastly drownings). Hot Springs and Drownings took the longest to get through. A lot of people died from these two subjects. The Second part: Death by Man is pretty self explanatory...(battles, fights, diving, Horse/wagon/stagecoach accidents, self-shooting, murder, suicide, structural fires, missing presumed dead, carbon monoxide poisoning and lastly road and air collisions).

This particular edition is the second edition which came out in 2014. The author Lee H. Whittlesey is a historian who lives and has worked within Yellowstone National Park for many many years. His love for the park can be seen within his writings. There is a bit eye rolling in his voice, but with good reason. Some of the things that I've read are simply amazing. Amazing as in, I can not believe...I should believe...people are THAT STUPID.

In the first chapter "Death in Hot Water", it's pretty insane how often people ignore warning signs. Even in 2018, I witnessed a lady step over the warning signs to get a closer look/picture of a hot spring with her phone. Like obviously this is wrong, but people live on the belief that it won't happen to me. More outraging is 'Deaths from Bears', people thought because it was a "park" that the bears were tamed creatures and that they could befriend them. How dumb?!? Why would that ever be a thing. I'm afraid of dogs that are roaming by themselves on the streets...I couldn't imagine walking into a BEAR and being like "look how cute he is?!?". Wow some people.

My favorite reads from this book was definitely the foolhardiness. Death by Nature seems so logical. Yes, you are likely to fall if you are walking backwards to take a great snapshot of someone while near a cliff. If there is a warning on Yellowstone Lake that says there is a very good chance you will drown from unexpected noonday storms, you'd think well....maybe I should only travel by boat in the morning or evening. OR maybe I should stay on shore. I don't know. I'm pretty cautious. I tend to follow most and all rules just in case. These people however decide that putting their baby on a bison would be the PERFECT shot for their scrapbook and oh look now baby and daddy have been mauled to death. Shaking my head. It's kind of funny how outraged my 13 year old got during this first part of the book. Shouting in confusion "how stupid can people be?". Very stupid son apparently.

I'm not quite sure how to go abouts reviewing this non-fiction because it literally is facts. Peoples names, date of death and the how's and whys. It's a cautionary tale of overly confident dummies who took all warnings as hogwash and maybe only for scardy cats. I think the worst part of the whole book is that people actually sue Yellowstone for not making it safer. People want fences erected all over the place. They want signs warning about not stepping into hot springs every hundred feet. If water is boiling it's probably hot. Why would you try to jump into it? It's not air bubbles people its boiling hot water! Like what you would find on your stove not in your Jacuzzi.

I'll leave this review with a few quotes from the book's ending. "Dangers are simply a part of wilderness. And when one enters wilderness, one must take it on its own terms. Wilderness is impersonal. It does not care whether you live or die. It does not care how much you love it."

"The national parks were set aside to enhance man's sense of freedom...the wilderness environment has always contained certain dangers and to remove them would require alterations so sweeping that the scene would cease to be refreshing." -The Park Service explaining why fences can not be put up all around the hot springs.

"Wilderness is not just another product or commodity to be made safe to prevent product liability litigation. For without those dangers, it would not really be wilderness."

If you have visited Yellowstone and are interested in the darker side, not just the breathtaking views, definitely pick up this book. No one has to read it in the fashion that we did from beginning to end. Although it was fun. You can certainly pick the subjects that interest you the most like, "I Think That I Shall Never See...: Yellowstone's Deaths from Falling Tress".

[Bonnie Morse · Rating 1 out of 5]

It takes a deft hand and a special sense for the black humor of tragedy to write a book like this. Former Ranger Whittlesey has neither. His recounting of deaths in Yellowstone National Park is, in theory, everything you could want in horror, wonder, and human interest, but it's seriously limited by being only a recounting of facts. He knows stories, but is not a storyteller. He has a pile of information to convey, and he does successfully convey it, but it's not assembled in a way that makes it anything more than the sum of its parts.

Each chapter focuses on a particular manner of death, e.g. Boiled Alive, or Eaten By Bears, or Gassed By Nature, and begins with an exhaustive scientific explanation of the cause of death. How therms work, what happens when human flesh is boiled, how many bears are in the park and what species and what they eat, what poison gasses are produced by hot springs (or thermal features, if you're a pretentious gasbag) and how each one smells/tastes/kills. After the dry recitation of FACTS about SUBJECT, he tells us some things he read in ranger reports, newspaper articles, or heard from other people.* Mr. JFC Ithurts went into the springs on this date, at this time, for this reason, was pulled out by these people, suffered this horrifying list of injuries, died on this date, at this time, and this is what the witnesses said. Then he'll talk about the legalities of park liability a little, mention any related lawsuits and their outcome, and, for cases covered heavily in the media or involving a dead ranger (Heroes All), include some details lifted from their obituary or eulogy that was definitely written by someone who knew them.

In the revised Introduction to the Second Edition (2014), he notes with pride that he must have gotten all of the details right and not offended anyone (unlike the authors of the more popular Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite: Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in America's First Protected Land of Scenic Wonders and Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon) because he was never sued by a family member or survivor of the dead. Although I wasn't able to read every single dry, pretentious, pedantic paragraph of this book, I feel safe in hazarding a guess as to why: Whittlesey can't be sued over anything he writes because everything he writes is part of the public record somewhere. It's in the Ranger logs, court documents, newspapers. His entire book is one long largely unattributed quote from a thousand sources, all bare facts that can't be argued. Does it absolutely suck that he writes about bears stashing human remains for later meals as "standard bear caching behavior"? Of course! Is it gross and creepy and kind of reprehensible to specifically tell the world that the bear ate a man's "entire pelvic region", or that after ripping open a tent and dragging a sleeping camper out by his head, it consumed fully 70 lbs of the man's body weight? God yes! Would you just die if you saw your own spouse/brother/husband/father described that way, by name, along with his physical description before and after the attack? I'd sure want to!

But can you sue over it? No. Because it's just the facts, and if you can't sue the Rangers who wrote the first reports, or the medical examiners who wrote the final ones, or any of the witnesses, investigators, or journalists in between, then you can't sue this author for compiling the data into this handy index of death facts and no second thing. You can't even get upset when he suggests that your mostly consumed husband, whose head was never found, could be considered responsible for his own death, because, after a long day of hiking, with his campsite clean and his food properly stashed, he retired to his registered tent in an open campground wearing dirty socks when he really should have known better than to be anything other than completely odorless, since the judge allowed that argument at trial. And Whittlesey isn't taking a side. He's just repeating the facts. To be able to sue him, he'd have had to say something new. Add a thought or two that aren't also dry facts dredged up from his years as a Park Ranger. But he never manages to do that. This isn't so much a book to read and enjoy as it is the base material for a really great National Park Ranger podcast. The kind a guy might get sued over.

A minor thing that really annoyed me personally, that I would have disliked even in a better book, is the author's constant use of the phrase "obvious and hidden dangers". As in, "the park is only obligated to warn of obvious and hidden dangers", or "people need to look out for obvious and hidden dangers". Besides my own pedantic knowledge that that particular phrasing is most commonly used to list two similar things, not two totally opposite things ('clear and present danger', 'clear and simple instructions', 'smooth and peaceful trip'), what other dangers are there? If the park "only" has to warn of the obvious dangers that anyone can see, and the hidden dangers that are hard to see, what are they *not* obligated to warn of? What dangers should people *not* be on the lookout for, when they're watching for the obvious and hidden ones? Shouldn't that just be dangers? Like, all of them? This is never explained, nor does he ever use any other phrase occasionally to give a broader view. I wonder if he talks like this to other Rangers and visitors to the park. When he dies will he be remembered as The Obvious and Hidden Dangers Guy?

Wait, did he mean Obvious and Hidden Dangers? Am I emphasizing it wrong in my head? That doesn't completely fix the problem, it does nothing for Park liability, but it helps. This is why you need more than one phrase if you want to emphasize a single concept over a thousand times in a 400 page text.

It also bears mentioning that there are a lot of bad dog stories in here. Not stories of bad dogs (tho some do show questionable judgement, even for dogs), but bad stories about dogs. Just casually slipped in all over the place. Like dog doo in tall grass, ready to strike when you least expect it. I did not, in fact, see a single mention of a dog that wasn't a complete (dry, pompous, pedantic) horror. So, not for nothing, don't take your dogs to Yellowstone. No good can possibly come of it. Don't argue with me, just get a sitter or go somewhere else.

And probably also don't read this book. Unless you just really want to know how many ways a person can die in Yellowstone. If you read one or both of the Michael P. Ghiglieri books mentioned above and want more of that, this is not more of that.








*This is especially irritating with short chapters, like Gassed To Death, which dedicates more space to what kind of gasses and where and how they work than it does to actual deaths, because there have only been, like, two. And one of them is from Cowboy Times so it's just a probable COD for a week-old corpse.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone who visits Yellowstone should be required to read this book first! Here’s what they would learn:
- Don’t jump in the thermal pools for a swim.
- don’t go hiking alone with your headphones on and without bear spray
- don’t eat any roots you dig up
- don’t climb over barricades to get a better photo from a cliff edge
- don’t stick your head out of your stagecoach window
- don’t go out in your canoe on a windy afternoon
- don’t move to Yellowstone as a mail order bride for an old hermit
- don’t stand up in your little fishing boat
- don’t throw rocks into canyons
- don’t drink and do anything
- and, for heaven’s sake, watch your kids, stay on the trails, and don’t feed the animals!

[Ericka · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book may appear daunting, but only about 3/4 of it are stories. The last quarter is dedicated to end notes and more information about the cemeteries of Yellowstone.

Do not read this book BEFORE or DURING your stay at Yellowstone. I read the book right after I left the park's borders and it left me with the willies for a long time. It is definitely not for those who can't stomach disgusting and grotesque things. For example, they describe in detail what happens to a person's body post-geyser accident. Another chapter talked about bear attacks and people being eaten alive.

I found the chapter on geysers and animal attacks to be the best part of the book. It will be interesting to see if I can bring myself to check out Old Faithful ever again. By the time you're done with this you might be lucky if chipmunks don't send you into a panic. This book proves that anything that can go wrong will and that you should never doubt in the depths of people's stupidity.

[Jolis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anetes iedvesmota izlasīju :)

Interesants apkopojums par daudziem veidiem, kā (ne)nomirt Jeloustonas nacionālajā parkā un vispār dabā. Laikam galvenais secinājums būtu - neaizmirstiet izlasīt tās vietas, uz kurieni dosieties, noteikumus. Dabā bez cilvēka muļķības jau tāpat pietiek citu bīstamību.

[Book Concierge · Rating 1 out of 5]

The subtitle states: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park.

I’ve had this on my tbr for some time. In general, I like nonfiction about natural history and the great outdoors. I read Jack Olsen’s Night of the Grizzlies a few years ago and found it fascinating and compelling. I was expecting something akin to Olsen’s work with this book, and was sorely disappointed.

Whittlesey give us a recitation of incidents in the park, and surrounding communities, divided into categories/chapters. The first two are fairly interesting despite the dry, factual delivery. Whittlesey begins with people who have been burned / scalded by falling – or diving (!) – into various hot springs. The second chapter is devoted to encounters with bears, primarily grizzlies. In each chapter, he relates the incidents in chronological order, beginning with vague reports of events in the late 1800s, for which we have minimal historical data or first-hand accounts. He includes chapters on poisonous plants, falls, runaway horses, Indian battles, suicide, car accidents, drowning, and avalanches among others.

I appreciate the amount of work involved in gathering all this information, and Whittlesey obviously spent time trying to corroborate various accounts (frequently without success, though he noted his efforts). However, the delivery of this information is so dry and “just the facts, Ma’m” that I quickly grew bored.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book from my local library, but I understand that it's also sold at Yellowstone itself. This is probably a public service. But the sad truth is that the people who really need to see it, who think that the boardwalks around hot geysers are just suggestions, that the bears must be tame and look so terribly hungry, or that it would be fun to swim just above the falls are exactly the people who won't read and absorb the lessons of this book. For a book about horrible ways that people can die, it's remarkably free from sensationalism. The author used to work at Yellowstone, so he understands what the park is really like and a little of why people do the ill-advised things that can kill them. And the sad fact is that most of the deaths in this book, even the ones by natural causes, could have been avoided entirely. Certainly creepy, and if I ever do get out to Yellowstone it'll probably leave me slightly freaked out.

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that if you fall (or jump) into one of Yellowstone's boiling geothermal pools, you will not only die a slow, painful death, but your eyes will turn completely white---just like a boiled fish. Yep. It's in the book. Oh--and Grizzly bears like to slash through your tent and pull you out while you are sleeping. Thought you were safe because you hung your food up? Nope.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main idea of this book is: respect the wilderness! Whittlesey has done a very thorough job of chronicling every death that has occurred in or near Yellowstone National Park. Chapters are arranged by means of death. What strikes me repeatedly is that people simply ignore or fail to understand warning signs, restrictions, and rules-- they're there for a reason. The animals in the park are NOT part of a zoo or petting zoo-- they're wild and potentially dangerous. I can't believe people have been seen putting their kids up on the backs of bears and bison to take their pictures! This was an interesting book and should be read by anyone considering a trip to the western wilderness.

[C-shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perverse as it may be, I love to read disaster books of all sorts: mountain-climbing terrors, shipwrecks, etc., and I am especially enamoured of bear attack stories. This book is so interesting to me, even as I cringe while reading it. I hope my interest is in part a desire to avoid such horrors, rather than just for the prurient thrills!
* * * * *
Well, my interest faded after reading pages and pages of minor details about people who died over a hundred years ago. The part about the hot springs deaths (boiled people and dogs!) and the bear attacks (chewed humans!) were horrific but interesting.

[Roberta]

I couldn't finish this book. I enjoy stories about mysterious deaths and find murders generally interesting, too. But so many of the people in this book died for no other reason except that they were just incredibly stupid. It was just too depressing.

[Manifest Stefany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad I visited Yellowstone before reading this. I don't wish to go back now. 😮 Very informative and interesting history. A mix of sad and infuriating tales of the Tourons.

[Lady ♥ Belleza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilderness is impersonal. It does not care whether you live or die. It does not care how much you love it.

So while we are loving the Yellowstone wilderness, while we play in it, indeed revel in it, taking it on its own terms and helping to protect it, we foolish mortals must always remember to respect it. For not only can it bite us, but, indeed, it can devour us.

While reading this my first thought was he could have just subtitled it, "People are stupid". Indeed, most of the deaths in this book are the direct result of people being "foolhardy". There are a few genuine accidents and some deaths by others actions, negligent acts and even homicides. Lee Whittlesey covers them all. What is not included in this book are deaths from auto, motorcycle, or snowmobile wrecks or deaths from heart attacks or illness.

The book is divided into two sections: Death by Nature which covers hot springs, wild animals, poisonous plants and gas, lightning, falling rocks and trees (although these could also be in next section), avalanche, freezing, cave-in, falls, smoke, earthquakes, and drowning. Part II is Death by Man which covers Indian battles, fights, horse and wagon and stagecoach incidents, accidental and deliberate shootings, murder, suicide, missing and presumed dead, gas stove explosions, structural fires, carbon monoxide poisoning, death on road (bus accidents) and airplane crashes (military and private planes).

While this could have been a dry recitation of names and manor of death, Lee Whittlesey has provided a narrative with the deaths, how it happened and how he came by the information. He also gives a little bit of the history of his life and also why he wrote the book. This is actually the second edition, the first being published in 1995, and has more deaths. Some are older ones, the information sent to him by people who know about them. Some are deaths that occurred between 1995 and the publishing of this book.

While this is not an exciting, page turning book, I found it to be very interesting and informative. It made me glad that my parents were of the mindset that when in Yellowstone National Park, you obeyed the rules the Rangers stated because, "The rules are there for a reason!", and we left Yellowstone the same way we came in, with our limbs and lives intact. I did try to get a bear to eat my sister, but as is brought out in this book, they are wild animals and uncooperative.

The book ends with Whittlesey reinforcing the safety rules we should all follow because wilderness is after all wild and can devour us. A word of caution from me, while not gory, some of the descriptions of injuries in this book are graphic, for instance, he describes what happens to the human body when immersed in boiling hot water.

[CatBookMom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part is really fascinating: deaths by falling into thermal features (hot springs), bears, bison.

FWIW, I worked for the Nat’l Park Service (NPS) for 3 summers while I was in college - 1968-1970. Not only was I there for the initial story about a child mentioned in this book, which story made national news, about a boy who drowned in a thermal feature, I transcribed the initial Old Faithful local-office NPS inquiry from the cassette tape of their discussions to paper. Everything this book says about it is congruent with what I recall of the happenings. It was horrifying.

If you go to Yellowstone, keep your young kids on a leash (literally), or attached to your hands every single moment.

[Amelia]

The beginning of this book was EXCELLENT. These were the parts that focused on deaths related to fairly avoidable and/or predictable human error. The parts detailing how difficult it is to get people to take the dangers posed by wild animals like bears were pretty shocking. This whole first section feels must read.

The book did lose momentum after these chapters, becoming more of a litany of all the deaths in the park, without arguments about why they matter or what we can learn from them. (Admittedly, a litany of deaths is what it says on the tin.) For this section, anyone could get much of this information just by generating a list of incident reports; this is nicely compiled, however! Additionally, the author worked in Yellowstone for decades, and his personal connection to the place and some of the employees who have died surely adds depth to the book.

The book also succeeded in making me want to visit Yellowstone and other national parks, which is a weird but positive result. Somehow it did make a positive case for wild spaces.

Some readers may want to abandon after the first more compelling sections, and I would say that's a reasonable choice. (There is some interesting stuff on survival considerations with Yellowstone's cold water temperatures buried in later sections that they may wish to skim first.)

A small note: I found the editorializing in the suicide chapter to be outdated and somewhat tone deaf. It makes sense coming from an author who is not in the mental health field, who is referencing centuries of literature dealing with suicide (to be clear: I mean literature literature, not like, scientific literature), and whose first edition of this book came out in the '90s. It's not egregious enough to cancel the author or the book, and again, the author seems to be coming from a good and compassionate place, but it's there.

[Emily Tusken]

This book is less a cohesive piece and more like a 300 page list of tragedies that follows no real system of organization. I really enjoyed some of the tales, and would rather have read a full length narration of some of the more intriguing stories than having to sift through endless dates and names in the author’s attempt to not leave anybody out.

[Liz Marchiondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book started off with a bang detailing deaths by thermal pools and grizzlies. The hypothermia/avalanche focused chapter was also impactful due to the then-recent losses in the park. Everything was well researched and you could tell that Yellowstone was author Lee's life. Some of the sentences seemed to be simplistic and sometimes repetitive but I assume it can be tough to accurately expand on information gleaned from newspaper clippings or testimonials starting from the late 1800s.
I don't remember buying this book at all which is weird for me but I must have purchased it due to a MFM episode either regarding the murders in YS or possibly the bear-deaths.

[Andie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this audio book from the Early Reviewers program and, once again, I had not read the description of what I requested closely enough. I thought this was going to be a murder mystery set in Yellowstone, but instead, it is a chronicle of seemingly every death that has occurred in the park since it's inception.

I will say three things about this book:

1. It is not for the squeamish. The author graphically relates stories of people being boiled alive in thermal springs, being flayed and eaten by bears and being gored by bison. It came as a relief when people just started dying by falling trees.

2. The stupidity of people apparently knows no bounds. The vast majority of the deaths related in the book could have been avoided if the victims ha just followed basic safety rules prominently displayed at the park.

3. About two thirds through the book I just got bored at so much death and it just was not interesting (or shocking anymore)

This is a good cautionary book for anyone venturing into America's National Parks, but the author would have better served the reader is he had eliminated some of the deaths he relates. We did not need to hear about every last one of them.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

No mystery what the book is about; the title says it all. However, word of caution: If you're hoping for a Faces of Death account of death in Yellowstone, this isn't your book. But, if you'd like a tastefully written, historical recounting of the various ways in which people have died in Yellowstone in the last 100 years, then Whittlesey's book IS for you. Lots of interesting information, lots of common sense reminders about life in the the wilderness. Whittlesey says it best:

"While appreciating its (nature) wholeness, we must never abandon a healthy respect for wilderness. Wilderness is impersonal. It does not care whether you live or die. It does not care how much you love it. So while we are loving the Yellowstone wilderness, while we play in it, indeed revel in it, taking it on its own terms and helping to protect it, we foolish mortals must always remember to respect it. For not only can it bite us, but, indeed, it can devour us."

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely autistic book (complimentary). Whittlesey has done exhaustive research on his special interest and he is going to tell you about it in similarly exhaustive detail. I enjoyed the first 2/3rds or so, which are about accidents and idiocy with thermal pools, high places, and wild animals, and oddly found the litany of fatal fuckups kind of relaxing. However, the final third, about murders and suicides, etc. -- the types of human deaths that could happen anywhere -- just made me tired and sad.

In summary: don't pet a bear or a bison, don't take a dip in a thermal pool or wander around Yellowstone at night, and also don't get drunk and use a firearm, ever. Solid life advice!

[W e n d y : ) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"While approaching its wholeness, we must never abandon a healthy respect for wilderness. Wilderness is impersonal. It does not care whether you live or die. It does not care how much you love it.
So while we are loving the Yellowstone wilderness, while we play in it, taking it on its own terms and helping to protect it, we foolish mortals must always remember to respect it. For not only can it bite us, but, indeed, it can devour us."

[Granny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not, by nature, ghoulish (oh, maybe just a tad), but this book is really good bathtub reading. The "foolhardiness" aspect of the title was what intrigued me. I had no idea how many visitors to Yellowstone should be eligible for The Darwin Awards. This is "truth stranger than fiction" reading at its best.

[Msstressa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many, I got this book while in Yellowstone. I bought it shortly after a canoe camping trip that had so many mishaps we could have ended up in the next edition of this book. Maybe I'm morbid, but I did enjoy reading about all the ways that things can go horribly wrong in the most beautiful place on earth. A word to the wise: if your dog goes into a thermal pool, don't dive in after it, okay?

[Jessica King · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting catalogue - but that's all it is. If you're expecting something more Bill Bryson-y, you will be disappointed. It needs some serious editing because parts are repetitive.