Death In The Great Smoky Mountains:  Stories Of Accidents And Foolhardiness In The Most Popular Park, by Michael Bradley

I was unaware that there was an entire subgenre of writing that dealt with death and injury and foolishness in America’s national park until reading this book.  To be sure, I have previously read Death In Yellowstone [1], which is a stellar example of this book, but for me, it takes more than one book for there to be a body of literature, as one book without any imitators or competitors is simply an isolate.  This is a good book on its own terms, if you like reading about bad decisions that frequently lead to death, even if there are few overall such cases when one looks at how long the Smoky Mountain National Park has existed and how many people go there on a regular basis.  I have been there myself and been in a snowball fight with some fellow members of my high school orchestra when we went to Gatlinburg for a music competition, and thankfully our shenanigans did not make this book, though that of some young people who were not quite as skilled at hiking as they had thought did make the cut.

This short book of less than 200 pages is divided into fourteen chapters that tell a variety of stories about people who came to grief in terms of death or injury in the area of the Smoky Mountain National Park.  After a short introduction, this book begins with the sad story of Jasper Mellinger, who was apparently murdered by poachers before the park even opened (1), and then a chapter on a longtime mystery about a man named Edward McKinley (2).  After that is a story of people who survived World War II but not the mountains (3), and then a story of survival against the odds in the park (4).  After that the author discusses the disappearance of Dennis Martin (5) and then gives the advice that one cannot fight with mother nature and win (6).  There is a discussion on how common sense saves lives (7) and advice on staying together to stay out of trouble (8), before some sad stories of people who vanished without a trace (9) or were murdered (10) in the park.  After that the author provides advice on not overestimating one’s abilities (11) as well as a discussion on the disaster averted that was the blizzard of ’93 (12).  After that there is a chapter on a fatal bear attack (13) as well as deadly winds, waters, and drivers (14) in the park.

Since this is the second book of what appears to be an unofficial series that I have read, it has given me some idea of what other books would look like.  It is likely that every National Park has at least some stories of death and injury relating to either crime or folly or accident.  One can imagine, for example, reading about falls from the beautiful heights in Zion National Park or explorations gone awry in Glacier National Park or close encounters with alligators or hurricanes in the Everglades.  And perhaps such books exist, in which case there is a body of literature that deals with our national parks and how places people go to for vacation end up being places of peril because of the dangers of those patches of creation themselves or because of human folly and malice.  Indeed, this book is a highly melancholy one, even as it provides the author a chance to dispense wisdom and counsel about how to avoid the dangers of the Smoky Mountain National Park, which are dangers shared in general for mountainous areas, with snow, winds, and bears high among them.

[1] See, for example:

Book Review: Death In Yellowstone