Backcountry Deaths

Aldaron

Aldaron

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Joined
Jun 16, 2012
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Maybe this is a good topic for discussion.

Sometimes I get a little obsessed, and a couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to find out what was really the number one cause of death in the backcountry. I had always heard that it was falling, but I wanted to try to confirm that.

So I started collecting data...religiously...for a whole year.

And this is what I came up with:

http://www.edarnell.com/2010.html

The final conclusion: falling was far and away the number one cause of death in the backcountry.

Go figure.

And the thing many people worry about: animal attacks? Barely even on the radar.

What did I learn? Stop doing stupid things in high places...gravity always wins.

But I enjoyed collecting the data, and now it feels weird not to be doing it! I might do it again next year just to see how it plays out a second year.
 
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. Also nice to know as I head out on my first solo trip in a year... Just don't climb stuff. Check. :)
 
I think I also learned: don't go to Longs Peak. I think there are so many deaths on that mountain because it's a 14er close to Denver, so it draws a lot of people. But the one that always befuddled me was Snoqualmie National Forest. It got really weird to see how many people died around Snoqualmie Pass. But it's a high pass, right off the interstate, right outside of Seattle. So I think the stats get skewed by big groups of people in the backcountry.
 
Highly recommended reads that essentially lays out all the fatal mishaps in the 3 big N Parks. great enterainment value, a bit on the morbid side because of the sensitive nature of death, and yet you'll occasionally find yourself bursting out in laughter due to the most underlying common demoninator: stupidity. "hey... watch this!"

51WT288GZFL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Over-Edge-Death-Grand-Canyon/dp/097009731X

51XDpGoFcPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Off-Wall-Yosemite-Michael-Ghiglieri/dp/0970097360/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

51coYsnds6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Yellowstone-Accidents-Foolhardiness-National/dp/1570980217/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c

enjoy
 
interesting to see White Mountain Forest (I'm assuming WM National Forest) here in NH listed with Snoquamline as the deadliest forest...
I've been spending a lot of time up there the last 10 months...
 
Yeah, I think it's just concentrations of people that make that happen.

Those are good book suggestions...I'll have to check them out. My favorite book on this topic is Deep Survival. The guy takes a psychological approach to evaluating why some people die and some people live when faced with death in the wilderness.
 
I've read the NP Death books and that Deep Survival looks real interesting. Ordered a copy just now and hopefully I'll get it read before we're back in Utah.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
 
moose droppings said:
Highly recommended reads that essentially lays out all the fatal mishaps in the 3 big N Parks. great enterainment value, a bit on the morbid side because of the sensitive nature of death, and yet you'll occasionally find yourself bursting out in laughter due to the most underlying common demoninator: stupidity. "hey... watch this!"

51WT288GZFL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/097009731X/?tag=backcountrypo-20

51XDpGoFcPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0970097360/?tag=backcountrypo-20

51coYsnds6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1570980217/?tag=backcountrypo-20

enjoy
Click to expand...


I've read two of the three books. I haven't read the Yosemite book yet, but read the other two prior to visiting those parks. They were interesting reads, sometimes sad and sometimes funny, but most importantly I did take away some lessons of things not to do in the parks. Most of it is common sense, but there are things to be aware of specific to each park, so I was glad to have read them before our trips.
 
I thought about this thread several times while soloing the Sawtooths this weekend. I have to admit that it actually made me feel pretty good... aside from one bit of scrambling to get up above Imogene and some route finding around a snow field, I was never at much risk for a fatal fall. :) Wild animals... haha! Thanks again for the post, Aldaron.
 
Great! You know, even after doing all this research, last year I caught myself leading my wife along the side of a cliff for a "shortcut" at Crystal Creek in the Gros Ventre Wilderness. About halfway across I just stopped, looked at my wife, and said, "What's the number one cause of death in the backcountry?"

That was all it took. We turned around and took our very careful time returning back across the cliff.
 
moose droppings said:
Highly recommended reads that essentially lays out all the fatal mishaps in the 3 big N Parks. great enterainment value, a bit on the morbid side because of the sensitive nature of death, and yet you'll occasionally find yourself bursting out in laughter due to the most underlying common demoninator: stupidity. "hey... watch this!"

51WT288GZFL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/097009731X/?tag=backcountrypo-20

51XDpGoFcPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0970097360/?tag=backcountrypo-20

51coYsnds6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1570980217/?tag=backcountrypo-20

enjoy
Click to expand...

I highly suggest not reading these as after I have read them I am afraid to do anything in these parks! ;)- No they are great book..well informative might be a more appropriate way of describing them? IDK?
 
My wife and I once watched Night of the Grizzlies a few days before leaving for a weekend in Glacier. Yeah, she refused to go after that...
 
I think I'd me more curious about injury statistics in the backcountry. I was backpacking in the Wind Rivers and bumped into a ranger looking for a missing person/body. They found the guy with his leg pinned by a huge boulder, with his water bottle tangled up only a few feet from the lake. My biggest fear is always that I'll be traversing scree and a rock will flip and crack! There goes my leg. I'm more concerned about falls less than 10 ft. Twice I've been hiking with people who tripped and ended up smashing their faces (luckily both cases were only a few hundred yards down the trail).

I've had bears in my camp twice, been between a Moose and her calf, tried to pet a deer on a dare, kissed a (semi-domesticated) moose on a dare, had a skunk in my tent, had a moose in my tent, picked up a rattlesnake (very carefully), and suffered no ill consequences. Perhaps I'm lucky, but I don't see why so many people are so afraid of wild animal encounters.
 
@Aldaron Great stats! I think between avoiding falls and keeping one's temperature modulated you're going
to come out alive.
 
I'm gathering info again this year to see how it plays out. For January there were already 9 backcountry deaths. I started trying to pull info on rescues, too, but that got out of hand real fast. It's amazing how many people have to be rescued in the backcountry.

During the short period I was paying close attention to the rescues, one trend was quickly obvious: communication with the outside world. People who die in the backcountry don't have it, and people who get rescued do. Of course, most of the time that communication is with a cell phone because the people aren't that far from civilization. And the people who do run into trouble in the deep backcountry and don't have a means of communication have a much higher chance of dying.
 
Aldaron said:
I started trying to pull info on rescues, too, but that got out of hand real fast. It's amazing how many people have to be rescued in the backcountry.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, how were you able to access rescue info? Is it posted some where?

To me, that would be very interesting to learn from.
 
DrNed said:
Out of curiosity, how were you able to access rescue info? Is it posted some where?
Click to expand...
I just have a whole bunch of Google News searches set up with keywords to help capture those stories. For rescues, "Search and Rescue" catches a lot of stories.
 
All this talk about lions and tigers and spiders and bears made me think I should bump this thread.

As a side note, falls are about to take back over on this year's stats after avalanches made a strong showing this winter.
 
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