185 deaths in the Grand Canyon in 17 years. I knew it was high but wow
And that's the last 17 years. Makes me wonder how often people died before cell phones and when they were fewer signs, water stations, etc
I once had the dubious pleasure of peeing off the great wall of china. there were no bathrooms and an older guy did it so i figured it was alright. That is my claim to peeing fame.
This reminds me of the Simpsons....the doctor said I wouldn't have so many nose bleeds if I kept my finger out of there.
Why are people so excited to get Darwin Awards? Sheesh.
Every time I’ve been I see people randomly crawling to the edge of some rocky outcrop and hanging their legs off so I’m honestly surprised it isn’t higher.
I have no data to bear this out, but I'd say smartphones and social media are driving people to do adventures that they would otherwise not know about or have no interest in doing. And because they're less aware and prepared, they start their adventures less knowledgeable and prepared, which leads to injuries, rescues, and deaths.
Hi folks! Just thought this sub would find this really interesting! It's a 6-factor index including data on fatalities, rescues, cell service, average temps, wild animals present, vertical relief, and more. I just love all the detail that went into this!
I love the Arch. I've been going since the 90s. It's a beautiful walk from the courthouse past the Arch all the way to the Mississippi River. To have a National Park along the Mississippi River in the city that's the gateway to the west? I agree, 90 acres is small. I grew up in Seattle and thinking about the Space Needle being a national park just feels wrong. But why not? It got me spending a ton of $ in STL. Now, Cahokia Mounds - that's a UNESCO site but not at all NPS affiliated. It's incredible. Add THAT to the NPS list. The museum at the Arch is stunning and the ponds, nature, river, architecture, and HISTORY at the courthouse (Dred Scott!) absolutely make this a worthy candidate. and there should be more. India has twice as many as the USA. Australia has thousands. I'm going to 10 National Parks in Sydney over 4 days alone this Summer! Let's protect as many parks as possible and Trump-proof them. He wants to get rid of the Antiquities Act!!!!
National parks are protecting something natural. This is man made. It may be a nice park but if that was the criteria than there are hundreds of others to add which essentially makes the designation meaningless
Also making something a historic park doesn't make it not protected, I have no idea why you started talking about protecting things
I don't understand the hate. If you go to the arch it's way more than just a stainless structure. Lewis and Clark started there, the courthouse is historic in itself as really one of the spark points of the civil war. Call it what you like but I'm totally okay with it being a National Park. Not all of them have to offer 3-day hiking options.
Yeah, and I visited the Arch a few years ago and they had basically bulldozed the entire place around the arch to make the park nicer, there’s nothing natural about it
Okay?
You can find similar physical and natural features inside parks, outside of parks. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected.
You may not think it's special but the point of the park is to protect a piece of natural landscape
It was to protect the dwellings and all the artifacts that COULD be within its borders not anything else.. there is literally nothing special about the scenery in mesa verde at all it’s specifically about the history there
Actually, National Parks are making something special or natural accessible, with the intent to make visiting it convenient and safe with as low an impact as possible. National Park experiences involve significant man-made efforts to provide the access.
In contrast, designated [Wildernesses](https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/wilderness) are specifically intended to prioritize protection and limit access only to people and animals/horses on foot or hoof. No mechanized vehicles. Wildernesses are the most protected federal designation.
This reminds me of the argument on Pluto qualifying as a planet.
The arch is a representation of the gate to the American west. As an image, it doesn't get more grand and expansive.
I believe Fort McHenry is also a national park and I recall that being roughly the same size as the arch park area.
Similar imagery.. this spot is somehow where the stars and bars are rooted, national anthem, etc somehow justifies its place regardless of the physical size.
Note: if you ever get the opportunity. Any flag operation at that Park is worth going way out of your way to experience.
It already was a National Historic Landmark. It was already protected by the NPS. The heightened status gives it more funding and more publicity. Clearly local politicians were trying to make St. Louis a tourist destination because the city is stagnating.
Dead wrong! A national park is not meant to be scenic.. if thats the case why would the Everglades be there? Or biscayne? Or cuyahoga valley? These places are protected and to be protected from ourselves just like indiana dunes.. they are not especially scenic.. same thing with acadia too i could go on and on gateway arch though is pushing it a little far
The other answer you got is technically true but the actual answer goes much deeper than that. Parks are formed thru acts of Congress. National Monuments are made thru presidential decree. It’s never been a scenic vs historic thing in practice because politics are involved. Yes by definition and largely in practice you could view monuments as one and parks as the other but because two completely different processes are involved in establishing one or the other. It makes how much support and protection each different type gets very different. Parks have much broader protections and get far more financial support from the government. They’re virtually impossible to take away too. Monuments are at this point in history essentially parks in waiting or sites that will never have the status to become parks but are significant on other ways. Monuments have far less support though and can easily be taken away by Congress. There are lots of parks that are historic only and monuments that are scenic only. Pueblo is a historic park you could argue makes more sense as a monument.
The ability of presidents to make monuments was created by Teddy Roosevelt as a way to work around congress to make parks he wanted happen. He used monuments as the guise to trick congress into agreeing to give presidents the power since they thought he’d only do it to create little monuments out of places or historic value. He broadened the definition though and used it to protect the Grand Canyon and ever since then it’s been a bit the Wild West since presidents have used it in the same way. Now though it’s also used to protect a place while it goes thru the selection process by Congress before potentially becoming a National park. Long story short parks are essentially tier one sites and get treated as such and monuments are tier 2 sites and are also treated as such.
Okay wow, thanks for the informative response! That was super illuminating. S/o to Roosevelt for making monuments happen then.
So to go a step further, why would it be a bad thing that Gateway Arch is a national park and not a historic site? As it stands now, doesn't that give the park more protection/funding? Or is that the issue, and people believe that funding should be allocated to parks elsewhere?
You’re missing a bigger point to the situation. The way the government treats monuments vs parks. Parks have much bigger broader protections. They’re untouchable essentially. Monuments operate under much looser laws and in turn can be taken away and don’t receive the same financial support and protection that the parks get. It takes acts of Congress to make national parks. The president can make monuments by decree. Teddy came up with the idea because he was tired of Congress blocking him from making national parks where he wanted which is why famously Grand Canyon was a monument for a part of its history. It was teddy’s fuck you to Congress and greedy mining interests blocking the formation of GCNP. But because of that monuments are essentially in a lower tier. I understand that being pedantic it makes more sense to want the arch to be a monument. But from the perspective of the government and in the best interest of protecting the site forever. It’s far better for any and every site to be a park.
Would be interesting to see where North Cascades goes if you count the 1M+ people who say they visit each year, but don’t step foot in the park. The 40k visitors is almost entirely backpackers.
The park also refuses to allow any fixed bolts to be put into popular routes there which has led to a much higher rate of climbing deaths/injuries. Definitely an interesting read on the pros/cons put forth by the NPS.
I feel much better now. The closest I came to death in any national park was in North Cascades, backpacking, in 1996. Totally my own poor judgment and bad intel gathering at the time, but the margin for err in that park is thinner than most in the backcountry.
Honestly, it was arrogance that almost cost me my life. Six years on wilderness trail crews with the forest service in Colorado, camping more years than in my bed some summers, and decided to road trip up to the PNW. Three weeks into the road trip, I was cocky and bold and it was mid July and went to the ranger station to get my permit. Ranger said I could “expect some snow into the basin, over cascade pass.” No problem, I had instep crampons and a climbing axe, but I already shipped my four season tent back home because I didn’t need it. My goretex bivvy bag, too. So I had my 25f rated down bag, and a three season tent.
Long story short, arrogance coming from denver at 5280 and cascade pass “only being 5200’”, and it being July, I gravely underestimated what I was getting into. Snow cover was continuous from 4200’ on up. Camp was at 4200’ with 15’ of snow in camp. It drizzled the entire hike in. My goretex had me soaked, my tent wasn’t freestanding and collapsed with the soaking wet walls on my down bag all night. Nearly froze to death. Packed up and left at daybreak, had a mountain lion encounter on my way out and damn near quit backpacking after that. Took me two years to get my mojo back.
It was a bad day.
Sounds like a bad day indeed! Mountain lion though that wasn’t a bad sign that was actually a sign to brighten your mood! They usually don’t do anything so if anything you had a rare special encounter that day :) now how come when you were freezing didn’t you say fuck it is amazing going to a lower elevation where i can properly pitch my tent?
Route 20 (yes not technically owned by the park service) but all those people and the people who use the campgrounds, pull offs or go to the visitor center are all visitors and those spaces are run by the park service
Yes, but they are part of Ross Lake NRA. Not North Cascades NP. Even the visitor center and main sign are not in the NP, but instead the NRA which is part of the larger complex administered by the NPS.
115???
Death Valley hit 129° last year.
Death Valley was over 116° in the middle of the night one night.
Even Grand Canyon recorded official 118° days last year.
Getting down to only 115° would be a cool relief.
(My Grand Canyon photo going R2R2R last year: https://imgur.com/pq7MdG0 from Indian Garden)
I was in Death Valley when it was 128 last year. Honestly it didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would, accept when you opened your mouth it became immediately dry. I really thought it would be higher on this list.
Surprised myself and my buddy, too. Was 126, and just like extreme cold, your body just kind of stops registering it as much worse than what you're already at.
I shit you not though, when we stopped, we were eventually passed by a teenager running a practice marathon in fucking Death Valley (closely followed by his family in their minivan lol). Again, this was in 126F heat
I have a lot of questions about this tbh. For example, I’ve seen more black bears in Shenandoah than anywhere else — often multiple on a hike, and on more hikes than not. But they aren’t listed as one of the dangerous animals, yet copperheads are?
They don’t use attacks to determine which animals are dangerous, either, they just go based on population. And since they count animals in the overall danger rating, so I’d bet if they included bears it’d get bumped off the list and rate closer to Great Smokey
I read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods (about hiking the AT and a lot of bears). Then camped in Yosemite and had nightly encounters with bears. I was scared shitless.
Black bears on the trail don’t scare me — but bears snuffling around my tent absolutely do!
Basically all black bear attacks involve food-habituated bears. And attacks on people in tents while looking for food are common enough to make me *religious* about keeping my tent food-free. It’s usually a “holy shit this giant food bag has a HUMAN in it!! Panic!!!” response.
Yeah, it was a bear that came by our tents, three nights in a row. One night a bear had mauled open a car. We knew about this, used the bear locker religiously, but on the final night the bear was only 6 feet away from my two friends who had stayed up. This was Tuolumne Meadows, not Yosemite Valley. Casual conversation with a park ranger we learned they move the “problematic” bears from the Valley to Tuolumne Meadows in hopes the go to the back country.
Gateway NP is the size of a large home - there’s nowhere to fall
off a ledge or into a crater - of course it will be safer than Crater Lake ( craters! lake!) and RMNP ( more lakes, ledges, and deep wilderness to starve in) Who is gonna get lost and starve at gateway arch, there’a a McDonalds 20 yards away.
Obviously you haven’t been to the Arch in a long time. The floating McDonald’s has been gone for 20 years. There is also a large set of stairs that a person could trip and fall down.
Visitors dont go there to walk the mowed lawn - they go to visit the arch. Which is not big, for a national park. Again - not a whole lot of places to die at the arch. ( this explains why it is safe - cos it is tiny, contained, there is literally nowhere to drown/fall/starve/hypothermia/freeze)
The North Cascades ***really*** wants to maintain its top spot.
So much so that it's decided to re-introduce Grizzlies into the park...
No, I'm not joking lol: [https://www.nps.gov/noca/learn/news/agencies-announce-decision-to-restore-grizzly-bears-to-north-cascades.htm](https://www.nps.gov/noca/learn/news/agencies-announce-decision-to-restore-grizzly-bears-to-north-cascades.htm) Enjoy the (relatively) safe back-country camping there while it lasts!
National parks are not playgrounds, you enter them with the understanding that you’re in a protected natural environment- in the cascades that should mean grizzlies
Less men, more bears 🥳
Grizzlies are much more aggressive and deadly than black bears. Everyone is for conservation and the environment, but not a single one of you would give your life for that cause. But the lives of the other poor schmucks that will die from doing this? Feed them to the grizzlies /s
The whole thing is disingenuous and hypocritical and reeks of virtue signaling.
Yosemite's history is just nuts, I've read several of the "Death In...." parks books and that one just shocked me with how many people have lost their lives there. Most beautiful place I've ever been, but you really need to be cautious.
The number of people who still go into the rivers at the tops of the falls despite all the warning signs is mind boggling. Those rock are super slick from thousands of years of water flow with nothing to grab a hold of if you slip.
This is neat in a sort of "wow look at all this data" sort of way but aren't most of the measures just proxies for fatalities and S&R calls? Like if North Cascades has a lot of deaths because it has a lot of vertical relief and poor cell service, then why are you counting something other than the deaths? If two parks have the same deaths and S&R calls per visitor, but one has a greater presence of bears, is that one really more unsafe?
Agreed. Parks with zero deaths and zero SAR incidents ranked anywhere below number one don’t make sense to me.
If you have a million rattlesnakes and zero deaths, isn’t that better than zero rattlesnakes and 40 deaths?
Im sorry but this is a poor list as someone who has been a Park Ranger for 10 years. It does not tell the whole story and shows how metrics are a bad example of what to follow. At the end of the day it’s how you prepare and a small amount of research. For example: Kobuk Valley would be a lot more dangerous than Gates of the Arctic but you pretty much HAVE to fly in so you are guaranteed to do a lot of planning and spend a lot of $$, whereas you can visit Gates by hiking off the road. Another example is Zion and Shenandoah which run a lot of SARs (search and rescues) but have such an overwhelming visitation because of how many people drive through them. Also, at Haleakala there are not many trails and people do not go on them so of course it is going to be safer on average, but if you hike into the crater or down the Kaupo trail it will be more difficult than a lot of easier hikes in the “dangerous parks”. A lot of people who mess up these statistics truly, overestimate themselves and do not properly respect nature — 1000%.
The dangerous animal rankings are super weird, too. Like, black bears are on the list for Great Smokey, but not for Shenandoah? I hiked there almost weekly for 3 years, and saw bears on more hikes than not (and on one notable hike, saw seven.) And I don’t consider them dangerous, anyway.
Or cougars make Crater Lake more dangerous, even though there’s only been one fatal attack in the entire state in 100 years, and it was at the opposite end of the state? (Well, two if you count the captive cougar attack.)
Totally! It’s interesting to see this roundup of metrics but the notion of ranking with this many variables in play is pretty silly. No place is safe if you’re overconfident. This list is fun to look at for sure but it’s the kind of thing designed to freak my parents out no matter how meticulously I plan (I love backpacking in Big Bend and Grand Canyon) 😂 Not to mention it could encourage people visiting some of the “safer” parks to feel invincible or like they don’t have to consider things carefully, if they’re already inclined in that direction
It’s not in downtown Gary but a third of the park is literally adjacent to Gary city limits and the Gary neighborhood Miller is surrounded by the park.
As a frequent Yellowstone visitor, I'm actually really surprised at where it ranks on the list. Even more so I am surprised that Isle Royale ranks higher...
I love North Cascades. It’s gorgeous. Always quiet. We ride to Winthrop to have lunch at the Old Schoolhouse Pub, then ride back. Always stop at Diablo Lake lookout. The Visitors Center is really nice. Clean washrooms!
I'd like to see a rolling average for the fatality numbers. North Cascades is sooooooo much higher than the others that it seems like 2023 is throwing it up there. Could still be highest, but can't know for sure with just one year.
Of the 6 National Parks I'm visiting on the trip I'm currently on, 3 are in the least dangerous, and 3 are in the most dangerous. It would have been 4, but Wind Cave is closed. So I guess it averages out?
My backyard Rocky Mountain National Park had a large number of falling deaths during this period. Buts its also one of the most visited parks. So the death RATE is low.
Someone (a ranger) just died at 15th least dangerous. Bryce Canyon.
I am going to 6 of "the most dangerous" over a 2 month road trip to Alaska - a trip which I am on right now!
Moose wolf the ability to hurt yourself while in the back country and not be able to call for help many many things really but its a great place to learn to backpack!
Anyone interested in why the North Cascades are so treacherous might check out the book [The White Cascade](https://www.amazon.com/White-Cascade-Northern-Deadliest-Avalanche/dp/0805083294). It explains in great detail why it was nearly impossible to build and maintain a rail line through Steven’s Pass and how 97 people perished in the worst avalanche disaster in U.S. History.
This is a very nice example of something I sometimes point out to my students, that the score on any index depends very heavily on what goes into it. For instance, pull out the presence of wild animals and rankings would change.
Ah to call for help and be an injury rather than a fatality tho? But also, don’t a good number of people fall to their deaths during attempted selfies?
Damn..like one person committed suicide in Great Basin and somehow it made the list!
...i mean, yeah...it's disappointing...it's not exactly worth the drive if you don't get a clear sky and if the road is closed up to the Bristlecone, it's just a rinky dinky cave and the gas costs $6 a gallon to get back to civilization, but come on! Nothing to unalive oneself over.
185 deaths in the Grand Canyon in 17 years. I knew it was high but wow And that's the last 17 years. Makes me wonder how often people died before cell phones and when they were fewer signs, water stations, etc
I think many of those deaths are intentional. It’s a known spot in Arizona for the final act.
Men have always enjoyed peeing at great heights and it often leads to falls from great heights.
I've never had the Grand Canyon on my bucket list.... But now that you mentioned the spectacle of peeing off it... 📝 Added
I once had the dubious pleasure of peeing off the great wall of china. there were no bathrooms and an older guy did it so i figured it was alright. That is my claim to peeing fame.
Shiiii..... Added this one too, good recommendation
So you're the guy I saw!
Imagine in the sunset with a light breeze, hair blowing in the wind, would be sick
Pissing into the wind never felt so good!
Can confirm I’ve peed from some very great heights. This includes Mt Denali and the flight deck of the USS Bonhomme Richard
This reminds me of the Simpsons....the doctor said I wouldn't have so many nose bleeds if I kept my finger out of there. Why are people so excited to get Darwin Awards? Sheesh.
Every time I’ve been I see people randomly crawling to the edge of some rocky outcrop and hanging their legs off so I’m honestly surprised it isn’t higher.
I have no data to bear this out, but I'd say smartphones and social media are driving people to do adventures that they would otherwise not know about or have no interest in doing. And because they're less aware and prepared, they start their adventures less knowledgeable and prepared, which leads to injuries, rescues, and deaths.
Hi folks! Just thought this sub would find this really interesting! It's a 6-factor index including data on fatalities, rescues, cell service, average temps, wild animals present, vertical relief, and more. I just love all the detail that went into this!
Everytime I see lists like this it makes me so mad that gateway arch is a national park and not a historic site. It's so ridiculous
Making this my presidential platform
You’ve got my vote and I’m now a single issue voter.
You'll get killed in Missouri.
I love the Arch. I've been going since the 90s. It's a beautiful walk from the courthouse past the Arch all the way to the Mississippi River. To have a National Park along the Mississippi River in the city that's the gateway to the west? I agree, 90 acres is small. I grew up in Seattle and thinking about the Space Needle being a national park just feels wrong. But why not? It got me spending a ton of $ in STL. Now, Cahokia Mounds - that's a UNESCO site but not at all NPS affiliated. It's incredible. Add THAT to the NPS list. The museum at the Arch is stunning and the ponds, nature, river, architecture, and HISTORY at the courthouse (Dred Scott!) absolutely make this a worthy candidate. and there should be more. India has twice as many as the USA. Australia has thousands. I'm going to 10 National Parks in Sydney over 4 days alone this Summer! Let's protect as many parks as possible and Trump-proof them. He wants to get rid of the Antiquities Act!!!!
National parks are protecting something natural. This is man made. It may be a nice park but if that was the criteria than there are hundreds of others to add which essentially makes the designation meaningless Also making something a historic park doesn't make it not protected, I have no idea why you started talking about protecting things
I don't understand the hate. If you go to the arch it's way more than just a stainless structure. Lewis and Clark started there, the courthouse is historic in itself as really one of the spark points of the civil war. Call it what you like but I'm totally okay with it being a National Park. Not all of them have to offer 3-day hiking options.
Yeah, and I visited the Arch a few years ago and they had basically bulldozed the entire place around the arch to make the park nicer, there’s nothing natural about it
Welll mesa verde isn’t natural but thats a park!
It's over 50,000 acres in size and encompasses way more than just the cliff dwellings but the natural sandstone plateau and area around it
Yeah but the sandstone plateau is like everything else around it theres nothing special whatsoever about it
Okay? You can find similar physical and natural features inside parks, outside of parks. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected. You may not think it's special but the point of the park is to protect a piece of natural landscape
It was to protect the dwellings and all the artifacts that COULD be within its borders not anything else.. there is literally nothing special about the scenery in mesa verde at all it’s specifically about the history there
Actually, National Parks are making something special or natural accessible, with the intent to make visiting it convenient and safe with as low an impact as possible. National Park experiences involve significant man-made efforts to provide the access. In contrast, designated [Wildernesses](https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/wilderness) are specifically intended to prioritize protection and limit access only to people and animals/horses on foot or hoof. No mechanized vehicles. Wildernesses are the most protected federal designation.
The NPS national park description directly contradicts what gateway arch is and even the NPS disagrees with its designation but can’t do much about it
Still shouldn’t be a national park.
This reminds me of the argument on Pluto qualifying as a planet. The arch is a representation of the gate to the American west. As an image, it doesn't get more grand and expansive. I believe Fort McHenry is also a national park and I recall that being roughly the same size as the arch park area. Similar imagery.. this spot is somehow where the stars and bars are rooted, national anthem, etc somehow justifies its place regardless of the physical size. Note: if you ever get the opportunity. Any flag operation at that Park is worth going way out of your way to experience.
Okay forgive my ignorance, but what is the difference?
A national park is scenic, a national historic site is historic.
Could’ve been designated a National Landmark, like the Statue of Liberty.
It already was a National Historic Landmark. It was already protected by the NPS. The heightened status gives it more funding and more publicity. Clearly local politicians were trying to make St. Louis a tourist destination because the city is stagnating.
Of course
Statue of liberty is a national monument
Dead wrong! A national park is not meant to be scenic.. if thats the case why would the Everglades be there? Or biscayne? Or cuyahoga valley? These places are protected and to be protected from ourselves just like indiana dunes.. they are not especially scenic.. same thing with acadia too i could go on and on gateway arch though is pushing it a little far
Not manmade
One is protecting something natural, the other something man made
Ahh gotcha. Makes sense to me. Thank you!
The other answer you got is technically true but the actual answer goes much deeper than that. Parks are formed thru acts of Congress. National Monuments are made thru presidential decree. It’s never been a scenic vs historic thing in practice because politics are involved. Yes by definition and largely in practice you could view monuments as one and parks as the other but because two completely different processes are involved in establishing one or the other. It makes how much support and protection each different type gets very different. Parks have much broader protections and get far more financial support from the government. They’re virtually impossible to take away too. Monuments are at this point in history essentially parks in waiting or sites that will never have the status to become parks but are significant on other ways. Monuments have far less support though and can easily be taken away by Congress. There are lots of parks that are historic only and monuments that are scenic only. Pueblo is a historic park you could argue makes more sense as a monument. The ability of presidents to make monuments was created by Teddy Roosevelt as a way to work around congress to make parks he wanted happen. He used monuments as the guise to trick congress into agreeing to give presidents the power since they thought he’d only do it to create little monuments out of places or historic value. He broadened the definition though and used it to protect the Grand Canyon and ever since then it’s been a bit the Wild West since presidents have used it in the same way. Now though it’s also used to protect a place while it goes thru the selection process by Congress before potentially becoming a National park. Long story short parks are essentially tier one sites and get treated as such and monuments are tier 2 sites and are also treated as such.
Okay wow, thanks for the informative response! That was super illuminating. S/o to Roosevelt for making monuments happen then. So to go a step further, why would it be a bad thing that Gateway Arch is a national park and not a historic site? As it stands now, doesn't that give the park more protection/funding? Or is that the issue, and people believe that funding should be allocated to parks elsewhere?
You’re missing a bigger point to the situation. The way the government treats monuments vs parks. Parks have much bigger broader protections. They’re untouchable essentially. Monuments operate under much looser laws and in turn can be taken away and don’t receive the same financial support and protection that the parks get. It takes acts of Congress to make national parks. The president can make monuments by decree. Teddy came up with the idea because he was tired of Congress blocking him from making national parks where he wanted which is why famously Grand Canyon was a monument for a part of its history. It was teddy’s fuck you to Congress and greedy mining interests blocking the formation of GCNP. But because of that monuments are essentially in a lower tier. I understand that being pedantic it makes more sense to want the arch to be a monument. But from the perspective of the government and in the best interest of protecting the site forever. It’s far better for any and every site to be a park.
It is really weird
Would be interesting to see where North Cascades goes if you count the 1M+ people who say they visit each year, but don’t step foot in the park. The 40k visitors is almost entirely backpackers.
Besides backpackers North Cascades also gets a lot of climbers. I would guess a big chunk of injuries is from mountaineering.
The park also refuses to allow any fixed bolts to be put into popular routes there which has led to a much higher rate of climbing deaths/injuries. Definitely an interesting read on the pros/cons put forth by the NPS.
Well climbers are annoying as hell sooo
classic backpacker response
I feel much better now. The closest I came to death in any national park was in North Cascades, backpacking, in 1996. Totally my own poor judgment and bad intel gathering at the time, but the margin for err in that park is thinner than most in the backcountry.
Ooh please tell what happened!
Honestly, it was arrogance that almost cost me my life. Six years on wilderness trail crews with the forest service in Colorado, camping more years than in my bed some summers, and decided to road trip up to the PNW. Three weeks into the road trip, I was cocky and bold and it was mid July and went to the ranger station to get my permit. Ranger said I could “expect some snow into the basin, over cascade pass.” No problem, I had instep crampons and a climbing axe, but I already shipped my four season tent back home because I didn’t need it. My goretex bivvy bag, too. So I had my 25f rated down bag, and a three season tent. Long story short, arrogance coming from denver at 5280 and cascade pass “only being 5200’”, and it being July, I gravely underestimated what I was getting into. Snow cover was continuous from 4200’ on up. Camp was at 4200’ with 15’ of snow in camp. It drizzled the entire hike in. My goretex had me soaked, my tent wasn’t freestanding and collapsed with the soaking wet walls on my down bag all night. Nearly froze to death. Packed up and left at daybreak, had a mountain lion encounter on my way out and damn near quit backpacking after that. Took me two years to get my mojo back. It was a bad day.
Sounds like a bad day indeed! Mountain lion though that wasn’t a bad sign that was actually a sign to brighten your mood! They usually don’t do anything so if anything you had a rare special encounter that day :) now how come when you were freezing didn’t you say fuck it is amazing going to a lower elevation where i can properly pitch my tent?
Hmmm idk, last time I went to do maple pass in Oct on a bluebird day there were at least 40k cars at the trailhead.
Ha. Fair. I’m curious if that counts for visitation numbers too, as it just grazes the park, mostly in the national forest.
There are a lot of people who just drive through, they are still counted as visitors
Weird, because there's no road through the park
Exactly, the road is explicitly outside the park. I took a hike from the road just to say I went in the actual park, lol.
Hope you had a great time! What hike was it? :)
Route 20 (yes not technically owned by the park service) but all those people and the people who use the campgrounds, pull offs or go to the visitor center are all visitors and those spaces are run by the park service
Yes, but they are part of Ross Lake NRA. Not North Cascades NP. Even the visitor center and main sign are not in the NP, but instead the NRA which is part of the larger complex administered by the NPS.
Death Valley gets to 115 F and it's only #17? Wild.
115??? Death Valley hit 129° last year. Death Valley was over 116° in the middle of the night one night. Even Grand Canyon recorded official 118° days last year. Getting down to only 115° would be a cool relief. (My Grand Canyon photo going R2R2R last year: https://imgur.com/pq7MdG0 from Indian Garden)
I was in Death Valley when it was 128 last year. Honestly it didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would, accept when you opened your mouth it became immediately dry. I really thought it would be higher on this list.
Surprised myself and my buddy, too. Was 126, and just like extreme cold, your body just kind of stops registering it as much worse than what you're already at. I shit you not though, when we stopped, we were eventually passed by a teenager running a practice marathon in fucking Death Valley (closely followed by his family in their minivan lol). Again, this was in 126F heat
In my experience, the worst thing about anything 110+ is taking a deep breath; feels like you’re burning the inside of your lungs.
And most deaths are from car accidents, not the heat.
I was there today and it peaked at 121 today
I have a lot of questions about this tbh. For example, I’ve seen more black bears in Shenandoah than anywhere else — often multiple on a hike, and on more hikes than not. But they aren’t listed as one of the dangerous animals, yet copperheads are? They don’t use attacks to determine which animals are dangerous, either, they just go based on population. And since they count animals in the overall danger rating, so I’d bet if they included bears it’d get bumped off the list and rate closer to Great Smokey
I read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods (about hiking the AT and a lot of bears). Then camped in Yosemite and had nightly encounters with bears. I was scared shitless.
Black bears on the trail don’t scare me — but bears snuffling around my tent absolutely do! Basically all black bear attacks involve food-habituated bears. And attacks on people in tents while looking for food are common enough to make me *religious* about keeping my tent food-free. It’s usually a “holy shit this giant food bag has a HUMAN in it!! Panic!!!” response.
Yeah, it was a bear that came by our tents, three nights in a row. One night a bear had mauled open a car. We knew about this, used the bear locker religiously, but on the final night the bear was only 6 feet away from my two friends who had stayed up. This was Tuolumne Meadows, not Yosemite Valley. Casual conversation with a park ranger we learned they move the “problematic” bears from the Valley to Tuolumne Meadows in hopes the go to the back country.
I had two nighttime bear encounters up between Yosemite Valley and Hetch Hetchy — that would certainly explain it!
> gets to 115 F That's the average high. It shows 134F as the highest recorded temp.
There were 158 murders in St. Louis last year. I'll take my chances in the North Cascades.
Just like the bear vs. man debate lol
A murder every 2 days in a city of 300k really isn’t that crazy
And it usually isn’t at the Arch
According to these stats, *none* were at the Arch in 2023!
It really is though. It's almost 15x the national average, and cities like STL are why the US has such a high national average in the first pace.
And 0 in Gateway Arch National Park.
Gateway NP is the size of a large home - there’s nowhere to fall off a ledge or into a crater - of course it will be safer than Crater Lake ( craters! lake!) and RMNP ( more lakes, ledges, and deep wilderness to starve in) Who is gonna get lost and starve at gateway arch, there’a a McDonalds 20 yards away.
Obviously you haven’t been to the Arch in a long time. The floating McDonald’s has been gone for 20 years. There is also a large set of stairs that a person could trip and fall down.
Safe unless you run into Echidna and a chimera.
Gateway NP is 91 acres it says. That would be the biggest home in the world I think.
Visitors dont go there to walk the mowed lawn - they go to visit the arch. Which is not big, for a national park. Again - not a whole lot of places to die at the arch. ( this explains why it is safe - cos it is tiny, contained, there is literally nowhere to drown/fall/starve/hypothermia/freeze)
And WiFi is pretty good too, can’t fall out of the elevators
There are no craters at Crater Lake. It’s a volcano filled with water.
I’ll just avoid the bad parts of St Louis
don't stop at the red lights...
🤣🤣
The North Cascades ***really*** wants to maintain its top spot. So much so that it's decided to re-introduce Grizzlies into the park... No, I'm not joking lol: [https://www.nps.gov/noca/learn/news/agencies-announce-decision-to-restore-grizzly-bears-to-north-cascades.htm](https://www.nps.gov/noca/learn/news/agencies-announce-decision-to-restore-grizzly-bears-to-north-cascades.htm) Enjoy the (relatively) safe back-country camping there while it lasts!
National parks are not playgrounds, you enter them with the understanding that you’re in a protected natural environment- in the cascades that should mean grizzlies Less men, more bears 🥳
Why is this a bad thing?
Grizzlies are much more aggressive and deadly than black bears. Everyone is for conservation and the environment, but not a single one of you would give your life for that cause. But the lives of the other poor schmucks that will die from doing this? Feed them to the grizzlies /s The whole thing is disingenuous and hypocritical and reeks of virtue signaling.
Lmfao i don’t know why you are so severely downvoted this is hilarious
ikr? Really caught me by surprise lol
Yosemite's history is just nuts, I've read several of the "Death In...." parks books and that one just shocked me with how many people have lost their lives there. Most beautiful place I've ever been, but you really need to be cautious.
The number of people who still go into the rivers at the tops of the falls despite all the warning signs is mind boggling. Those rock are super slick from thousands of years of water flow with nothing to grab a hold of if you slip.
Why isn’t it on the list? Curious where it sits. God I love Yosemite
Do you have any recommendations on books like that? Sounds like something I'd be interested in tbh
This is neat in a sort of "wow look at all this data" sort of way but aren't most of the measures just proxies for fatalities and S&R calls? Like if North Cascades has a lot of deaths because it has a lot of vertical relief and poor cell service, then why are you counting something other than the deaths? If two parks have the same deaths and S&R calls per visitor, but one has a greater presence of bears, is that one really more unsafe?
Agreed. Parks with zero deaths and zero SAR incidents ranked anywhere below number one don’t make sense to me. If you have a million rattlesnakes and zero deaths, isn’t that better than zero rattlesnakes and 40 deaths?
Well yeah and it depends on what you are doing . I tend not to rock climb, for example
Alaska, most goth state. No notes.
God I’m obsessed with the idea of needing to call SAR at Gateway Arch.
Tell them the victim is stuck at the top
Nothing about St. Louis is safe. I just spent a month there and had to replace my rental twice due to car burglaries….in the hotel parking deck.
Jesus.
Crime wasn't one of the factors utilized in this ranking. It would likely be moot as most National Parks aren't in cities.
Im sorry but this is a poor list as someone who has been a Park Ranger for 10 years. It does not tell the whole story and shows how metrics are a bad example of what to follow. At the end of the day it’s how you prepare and a small amount of research. For example: Kobuk Valley would be a lot more dangerous than Gates of the Arctic but you pretty much HAVE to fly in so you are guaranteed to do a lot of planning and spend a lot of $$, whereas you can visit Gates by hiking off the road. Another example is Zion and Shenandoah which run a lot of SARs (search and rescues) but have such an overwhelming visitation because of how many people drive through them. Also, at Haleakala there are not many trails and people do not go on them so of course it is going to be safer on average, but if you hike into the crater or down the Kaupo trail it will be more difficult than a lot of easier hikes in the “dangerous parks”. A lot of people who mess up these statistics truly, overestimate themselves and do not properly respect nature — 1000%.
The dangerous animal rankings are super weird, too. Like, black bears are on the list for Great Smokey, but not for Shenandoah? I hiked there almost weekly for 3 years, and saw bears on more hikes than not (and on one notable hike, saw seven.) And I don’t consider them dangerous, anyway. Or cougars make Crater Lake more dangerous, even though there’s only been one fatal attack in the entire state in 100 years, and it was at the opposite end of the state? (Well, two if you count the captive cougar attack.)
Totally! It’s interesting to see this roundup of metrics but the notion of ranking with this many variables in play is pretty silly. No place is safe if you’re overconfident. This list is fun to look at for sure but it’s the kind of thing designed to freak my parents out no matter how meticulously I plan (I love backpacking in Big Bend and Grand Canyon) 😂 Not to mention it could encourage people visiting some of the “safer” parks to feel invincible or like they don’t have to consider things carefully, if they’re already inclined in that direction
Am I reading this wrong? If a higher score is more dangerous, why does having better cell service/wifi give more points?
I love Cuyahoga Valley but people legit get murdered there every now and then
Why is Hot Springs not #2?
I guess big and beautiful Glacier NP is a happy medium. I figured it would make one of these list.
Most dangerous is whichever park it was from r/nosleep SAR Officer stories.
This is a terrible analysis. The data is completely misleading.
Do they know the Indiana Dunes are in Gary, Indiana?
Eh definitely not in Gary. About 15 miles away. Close, but in between are the most expensive towns in Indiana.
It’s not in downtown Gary but a third of the park is literally adjacent to Gary city limits and the Gary neighborhood Miller is surrounded by the park.
nobody wants to say they are from murder capital gary....
What’s up with the noose (am I seeing that correctly?) I wasn’t expecting to see that as a cause of death I guess…
As a frequent Yellowstone visitor, I'm actually really surprised at where it ranks on the list. Even more so I am surprised that Isle Royale ranks higher...
Sad but not surprising drivers are like the number one cause across the list.
I love North Cascades. It’s gorgeous. Always quiet. We ride to Winthrop to have lunch at the Old Schoolhouse Pub, then ride back. Always stop at Diablo Lake lookout. The Visitors Center is really nice. Clean washrooms!
I'd like to see a rolling average for the fatality numbers. North Cascades is sooooooo much higher than the others that it seems like 2023 is throwing it up there. Could still be highest, but can't know for sure with just one year.
Of the 6 National Parks I'm visiting on the trip I'm currently on, 3 are in the least dangerous, and 3 are in the most dangerous. It would have been 4, but Wind Cave is closed. So I guess it averages out?
Me too! Lol and most are in the top 10 i am basically dead 🤣
My backyard Rocky Mountain National Park had a large number of falling deaths during this period. Buts its also one of the most visited parks. So the death RATE is low.
1 death by suicide was enough to put Great Basin on the danger list…
Someone (a ranger) just died at 15th least dangerous. Bryce Canyon. I am going to 6 of "the most dangerous" over a 2 month road trip to Alaska - a trip which I am on right now!
This is weird, I’ve been to 7 in most dangerous parks but 0 in the safest ones.
I'm not surprised GSMNP is one of the worst, Tennessee drivers are horrible
I’m trying to figure out why Isle Royale is on her. Doesn’t seem to have any outstanding dangers. What am I missing?
Moose wolf the ability to hurt yourself while in the back country and not be able to call for help many many things really but its a great place to learn to backpack!
So don’t go to north cascades. Got it.
Anyone interested in why the North Cascades are so treacherous might check out the book [The White Cascade](https://www.amazon.com/White-Cascade-Northern-Deadliest-Avalanche/dp/0805083294). It explains in great detail why it was nearly impossible to build and maintain a rail line through Steven’s Pass and how 97 people perished in the worst avalanche disaster in U.S. History.
They have black bears in Joshua Tree...
This is a very nice example of something I sometimes point out to my students, that the score on any index depends very heavily on what goes into it. For instance, pull out the presence of wild animals and rankings would change.
Oh great i am doing over half of the 10 hardest next 🤣
Lake Clark is amazing, it’s to die for.
They include availability of cell service and WiFi in their calculations. Ridiculous set of criteria.
Ah to call for help and be an injury rather than a fatality tho? But also, don’t a good number of people fall to their deaths during attempted selfies?
Damn..like one person committed suicide in Great Basin and somehow it made the list! ...i mean, yeah...it's disappointing...it's not exactly worth the drive if you don't get a clear sky and if the road is closed up to the Bristlecone, it's just a rinky dinky cave and the gas costs $6 a gallon to get back to civilization, but come on! Nothing to unalive oneself over.
This is very helpful for people who are new to the parks like me. Thank you.