August 25, 2011
CONFUSING NATURE AND DISNEY:
How do you explain park deaths? You can't: Expert in Yosemite, Grand Canyon fatalities at a loss to explain 'stupid' behavior (Barbara Brotman, July 25, 2011, Chicago Tribune)
Why would three people ignore posted signs and shouted warnings and climb over a metal barricade to stand on slippery rock 25 feet from a massive waterfall in Yosemite National Park?The woman and two men from a church group who did that last week can't answer. They were swept into 317-foot Vernal Fall and are presumed dead.
Michael Ghiglieri can't answer, either. He still doesn't understand it, no matter how many times he has asked the question. And he has asked it many, many times.
Ghiglieri, a 38-year veteran wilderness guide, is co-author of two books, "Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite" and "Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon," which describe every known fatality in those parks. He has spent 12 years examining the ways people have died there.
He and his co-authors have concluded that it is almost always due to the victims' own poor judgment.
Isn't the most likely reason that they fail to grasp that nature is real and threatening, as opposed to being just a man-made amusement park with tons of safety features built-in?
Posted by oj at August 25, 2011 7:15 AM
Tweet