Death In Yosemite and Everywhere Else

I am obsessed with the book Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite. At my last job, I mentioned it in a staff meeting on my second day. I bought a copy for my then-brother-in-law in 2010 and read the entire thing cover to cover before I gifted it to him. Amazon tells me I’ve bought five more copies since then, all gifts pressed eagerly, maniacally, into the hands of friends.

Death in Yosemite is nothing more or less than a list of everyone who has ever died in the national park, arranged by cause of death: drowning, falling off cliffs, animal attack. (I don’t want to spoil anything, but the murder chapter is amazing.) There are so many ways to die in Yosemite, and not just the obvious ones. People have been accidentally gored by deer. People have tumbled to their death while taking selfies. People have died from having a pine cone fall on their heads.

After Death in Yosemite, I discovered industry accident reports. These reports usually require an expensive subscription, but if you google around enough, you can find accident reports for roller coasters, circus performers, nuclear plants, mining, paragliding, oyster farming, avalanches, crane operation, tree maintenance, and “general amputation accidents.”

After going to a water park in 2013, I spent hours reading about all the ways one can die at a water park. Again, it’s not just the obvious ones. People have died by drowning, of course, but also by electrocution, beheading, slide collapse, and chlorine gas asphyxiation.