Day 36 – Four Days in Yellowstone – or, Dozens of Ways to Die, Averted

N.B.: out of consideration for some of our concerned readers, we are posting this list of dangers after leaving Yellowstone unscathed, rather than before entering the park.

I picked up this book out of morbid curiosity and haven’t been able to put it down:

Full of first-hand accounts filled with gory details, this book discusses each and every death by hot spring, geyser, fumarole, steam vent, carbon dioxide or hydrogen sulfide asphyxiation, bear mangle, bison gore, moose trample, wolf attack, rattlesnake bite, poisonous mushroom, water hemlock, avalanche, hypothermia, rock slide, lightning strike, and accidental fall that Yellowstone has ever seen, dating back to the earliest records that began in the 1870s. In only a few of these cases could you label the death a true “accident.” In most cases, had the deceased (or caretakers) heeded common sense and/or the simple instructions and warnings provided by the park signs, pamphlets and park rangers, you’d have had a different outcome.

The book brings up an interesting tension which I have observed on this trip: in one corner you have the national parks, which are beloved because they’re supposed to be “wild”—i.e., potentially dangerous. In the other corner you have human stupidity and entitlement. Apparently, for a surprising number park visitors, “wild” has been taken to mean it’s the park’s responsibility to prevent you from idiocy—an erroneous assumption because most litigation against the parks has and will continue to fail. As the book makes clear, misjudging the wildness of the park will get you killed. And there will be nobody to blame but yourself.

I have never experienced any wilderness quite like Yellowstone, where dangers lurk around every corner. There are over 10,000 geothermal features in the park—many well over 175ºF. Falling in even halfway can be a death sentence: the scalding water or mud will give you 3rd degree burns and cause the skin to slide off. Terrain is constantly shifting because the entire thing rests on an active supervolcano, meaning that you need to stay on the marked trails, period. Couldn’t quite believe how many young children I saw running free of their parents. Half of all hot springs deaths have been small children.

check out the evil-sounding names here

sizzling basin

sour lake

black dragon’s caldron

dragon’s mouth spring

mud volcano

Then there are these bad boys.

roadside bison

roadside grizzlies

Bison have reclaimed the park, and because they have been portrayed as majestic, endangered herd animals, people underestimate how fast they can run, or how aggressive solitary males like the one above can be. They can charge at nearly 30mph and have been known to throw people 10-20 feet in the air, puncturing lungs, kidneys and other vital organs in the process. The seemingly cuddly grizzly bear sow and cub, like the ones we happened upon on our way out of the park, can be amazingly nasty to human beings that surprise them in the wild—they’ll tear you limb from limb and eat what they can of you before burying parts of you for later.

family picnic on Yellowstone lake

steam from fumarole on side of lake

homemade lean-to

Even the gorgeous Yellowstone Lake—the lower 48’s highest/largest—is not without its unusual dangers. There have been lightning strikes from storms that come out of nowhere, surprise burns from fumaroles ringing the beaches, and plenty of drownings—even in summer, survival time in the cold water is about 20 minutes.

Last, but not least, are the gorges and climbing features that have produced rock slides and avalanches. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone rivals the best canyons we’ve seen in terms of awe-inspiring beauty. But in contrast to the peaceful Madison river on the west side of the park, the Yellowstone river is busy ferociously carving out the canyon. The sides of the canyon just seemed less reliable, deadlier to the eye.

the very strong yellowstone river

the grade here seems treacherous

To sum up: for sheer wildness, nothing beats Yellowstone. Its rugged perfection stands in direct contrast to the human imperfection on display every day in the park. It also wins my award for the park I’m least likely to backcountry camp in.