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…