Re: [at-l] National Parks Danger Index

[Tim Rich <app-trail@excite.com>]

Greetings,

Here's the article.

Tim

################

--- Travel: How Safe Is That National Park? ---- By Lisa Gubernick 
The Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones 

[Warning: Bears aren't your only worry. Try SUVs, thieves and daredevil
hikers. With attendance booming, Lisa Gubernick reviews the safety data and
rates the major parks.] 

Vacationing at the Grand Canyon last summer, John Mori and his 12-year-old
son, Brian, set out on one of the national park's most popular tourist
attractions: a mule ride to the bottom. 

During a rest stop, they asked their guide for directions to a nearby
swimming hole. At first, the trail seemed easy. But a few minutes later, Mr.
Mori's feet hit a slippery patch, and he suddenly plunged 20 feet down a
ravine. His son ran to see what happened; then he, too, fell in. It took
five hours and three helicopters to get them out. 

"I call it the `Disneyland effect,'" says the elder Mr. Mori, who just
finished physical therapy after suffering head injuries and several broken
bones. "It doesn't look sinister. But you don't realize what in nature can
reach out and grab you." 

Most people think of national parks the way they're depicted in brochures:
natural wonders, hiking trails, friendly rangers on hand. But there's one
thing the parks don't readily advertise: their safety records. So with a
record 289 million visitors expected this year and several recent highly
publicized safety problems, Weekend Journal set out to find out just how
safe the nation's largest parks, seashores and recreation areas are. We
compiled our own index, ranking almost 50 places based on the frequency of
two types of incidents: serious crimes, such as homicides, theft and
assault; and the searches and rescues that parks conduct to find and aid
patrons. 

Our results: Not only are there wide variations in safety records, but the
biggest risks are problems you'd hardly expect in such idyllic settings.
While incidents such as the recent bear mauling in the Smoky Mountains grab
headlines, the most common dangers stem from classically urban issues, such
as drugs and alcohol, traffic accidents and theft. In addition, rangers say
that two modern innovations generally thought of as safety enhancers, cell
phones and sport-utility vehicles, may actually be enhancing risk by giving
tourists a false sense of security. 

"Too often people with cell phones end up doing things that they wouldn't
have tried 10 years ago," says Charles Farabee Jr., a recently retired
official at Glacier National Park in Montana and author of "Death, Daring
and Disaster: Search and Rescue in the National Parks." (Searches and
rescues include not just high-drama helicopter saves but also routine hunts
for boaters and hikers who miss their planned return times.) 

Of course, visiting a national park is still safer than a trip to most
cities. Orlando, for example, had about 65 serious crimes for every 100,000
of its residents and tourists in 1998, at least eight times the most recent
rate at Nevada's Lake Mead. Indeed, crime at parks has been dropping, just
as in much of the rest of the country. Last year, the government recorded
5,169 serious crimes at national parks, a 14% drop from 1995, though some
rangers believe many incidents go unreported because of cutbacks in park
staffing. 

But there are big disparities in safety records even at seemingly similar
places. For example, two relatively remote parks with major terrain-related
hazards wound up near the top of our index: the Grand Canyon, which had the
third-highest rate of incidents with 11.3 per 100,000 visitors, and
Yosemite, which came in at No. 5 with a rate of about 10.3 incidents for the
same number of visitors. By contrast, canyon-filled Bryce National Park
landed about halfway down our index, with a danger rating of 2.2. (One big
problem there actually has its own name: "Bryce ankle," a bone injury that
results from wearing city shoes on park trails.) 

The so-called recreation areas ranked first and second tend to have more
local traffic than the tourist-heavy national parks: Lake Mead, with 13.6
incidents per 100,000 visitors, and Glen Canyon in Arizona, with a danger
rating of 11.5. But comparable places came in much lower: Sleeping Bear
Dunes National Lakeshore, a more than 50,000-acre park in Michigan, had just
1.4 incidents per 100,000 visitors. 

Park officials say the main variables are terrain and proximity to urban
centers. In the case of Lake Mead, for example, Superintendent Alan O'Neill
blames many problems on traffic from Las Vegas and the gambling town of
Loughlin, Nevada, both a short distance away. One vaguely consoling caveat:
Mr. O'Neill notes that virtually all homicides recorded by the park in the
last several years were bodies dropped off there rather than killings taking
place inside its boundaries. 

At the Grand Canyon, the main peril is heat. About a third of last year's
325 searches and rescues were heat-related, typically hikers who wound up
dehydrated. "People tend to push themselves beyond their limits," says Ken
Phillips, search-and-rescue coordinator there. 

Indeed, unlike cities, uncharted wilderness and even ski resorts, where
people naturally have their guards up, tourists at national parks often
don't see potential hazards. "People think this is an amusement park, and we
can mitigate all danger," says Mr. Phillips. 

Take Mr. Mori and his son. On the mule ride they took last July, they
thought nothing of wandering off to take a quick swim. In fact, the rest
stop they ventured from rivaled a highway welcome center for amenities:
picnic tables, water fountains, even fully functioning restrooms. As soon as
the path started to get steep, Mr. Mori decided they should turn back. But
it was too late. In addition to the elder Mr. Mori's injuries, his son wound
up with a ruptured spleen. Mule-company operator Paul Mangum says tourists
are warned about going out on their own, noting that the Moris aren't the
only ones who have slipped on that trail. 

If you do get injured or find your campsite vandalized these days, it's
getting harder to find a ranger to tell. While visitation at national parks
has climbed over 6% since 1995, the number of park rangers has declined by
nearly 5%. (Many parks get extra help during the high season, though there
have been some cutbacks there, too.) Paul Stevens, an official at Cape
Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, says staffing cuts have made
isolated beaches more vulnerable to car break-ins. 

And unlike amusement parks, which plaster warning signs around rides, the
information that national parks provide is often no more than a map and a
description of landmarks. That's what New York book editor Joe Wood had with
him when he vanished last July at Mount Rainier in Washington state. At the
time, some trails were still covered with snow bridges, patches of ice that
camouflage streams below the path. But there was no mention of any other
weather-related perils in the maps. Rangers believe he may have fallen
through a snow bridge and into a ravine. 

How safe is your favorite national park? Below is a sampling of parks at the
top of our list, which offer a range of potential hazards and danger
ratings. 

Lake Mead/Boulder City, Nev. 

Attendance: 9.4 million 

Danger Rating: 13.6 

Safety Watch: Lake Mead had 540 search-and-rescue missions last year, a
relatively high rate due largely to searches for overdue boaters. It also
had the highest rate of serious crime of the parks we looked at. Park
officials hope to stem these problems by opening four entrance stations this
summer. Until now, Lake Mead was the only major park without them. "Those
people with trouble on their mind are less likely to come through a
controlled station," says Superintendent Mr. O'Neill. 

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area/Page, Ariz. 

Attendance: 2.7 million 

Danger Rating: 11.5 

Safety Watch: Unlike at Yosemite and Yellowstone, the number of seasonal
rangers has increased -- from five to eight in the last three years. Those
rangers are being primarily deployed in the park's biggest problem area:
Lone Rock Beach, a renowned Memorial Day party spot, according to park
officials. Rangers believe that if more citations are issued for minor
offenses such as public intoxication, they may be able to deter more serious
crimes. 

Grand Canyon/Grand Canyon, Ariz. 

Attendance: 4.9 million 

Danger Rating: 11.3 

Safety Watch: Some visitors fail to appreciate that the steep drops that
give the canyon its vistas aren't simply photo-ops. Last summer, a man in
his 20s asked another tourist to take his picture against the backdrop of
the canyon. To get the perfect shot, he clambered over the short wall
blocking the promontory. Walking back, he tripped; the other travelers
watched horrified as he fell over 300 feet to his death. 

In 1997, the park introduced a program called "Heat Kills," posting
personnel on the trails to urge hikers to shorten their outings. Since then,
search-and-rescues have dropped by more than 50%. 

Everglades/Homestead, Fla. 

Attendance: 1.1 million 

Danger Rating: 10.8 

Safety Watch: It's not the notorious gators that pose the biggest hazards
here -- there has been only one unprovoked attack in the last 53 years --
it's car break-ins. Indeed, the park has an unusually high number of
larcenies per visitor. The biggest trouble spot? The parking lot closest to
the Visitors' Center, though thefts there have dropped dramatically this
year thanks to a prominently posted surveillance camera. 

The search-and-rescues are primarily for boaters who've failed to return on
time. "People take boats out for 60-mile trips that haven't been fully
checked out in months," says Philip Selleck, acting chief ranger. 

Yosemite National Park/ 

Yosemite, Calif. 

Attendance: 3.6 million 

Danger Rating: 10.3 

Safety Watch: Yosemite has a problem known inside the park as "B.A.S.E.," an
acronym for what people jump from (buildings, antennas, spans and earth).
These daredevils plunge from high peaks, opening their parachutes midjump.
The park banned the jumps a decade ago, but to little avail. Last year, a
63-year-old jumper was killed when her chute failed to open. Another landed
safely -- then drowned in one of Yosemite's fast-flowing rivers while trying
to elude the rangers chasing him. 

There has been a 50% reduction in ranger staff over the past 10 years, which
officials believe has resulted in the reporting of fewer crimes. While the
three women hikers murdered outside park boundaries last year made
headlines, theft from park hotel rooms is more common. 

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore/Porter, Ind. 

Attendance: 1.9 million 

Danger Rating: 6.2 

Safety Watch: To cut back on car thefts, closing times at two parking lots
have been pushed back two hours to 9 p.m. Officials have also installed
after-dark lighting at other lots. The park is about 50 miles from Chicago,
and part of it also extends into Gary, Ind. Those cities are the sources of
much of its crime. 

New River Gorge National River/ Glen Jean, W.Va. 

Attendance: 1.2 million 

Danger Index: 5 

Safety Watch: With exceptionally fierce rapids, this park's rivers are
considered among the world's pre-eminent white-water rafting sites. Rafting
accounted for half of last year's 22 search-and-rescues and all four
fatalities. With its steep cliffs, New River is also a premier rock-climbing
center, the cause of other search-and-rescues. 

Death Valley National Park/ 

Death Valley, Calif. 

Attendance: 1.3 million 

Danger Rating: 4.6 

Safety Watch: It didn't get its name for nothing. Officials say the park
gets two or three suicides a year, partly because of landmarks such as
"Funeral Mountain" and "Devil's Golf Course." 

Search-and-rescue coordinator Dan Dellinges says rented SUVs are a growing
problem, since they encourage inexperienced drivers to tackle roads they
can't handle. He cites the example of two Belgians who recently abandoned
their Suzuki after it got stuck on a small rock. They were rescued after a
plane spotted a large note they had left on the car that said, "Please
help." 

Yellowstone National Park/ 

Yellowstone National Park, WY 

Attendance: 4.1 million 

Danger Rating: 3.7 

Safety Watch: Forget being steamed to death in a geyser. One of the biggest
problems here is as mundane as it gets: traffic. Last year, there were a
record 616 accidents. The park has 450 miles of roads, and some of the most
widely traveled haven't been upgraded in more than 30 years. Unlike
Yosemite, which plans to start restricting auto traffic and bus some
tourists from satellite parking lots, Yellowstone is simply trying to step
up enforcement of traffic regulations. 

The park has also added new barriers to one danger spot, a trail along
Yellowstone's Grand Canyon. Officials hope it will keep visitors from
straying close to the edge. 





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