Take a (Careful) Walk in the Park...

By Carol Van Why

​Here’s a statistic I never anticipated sharing in a Coffman Library blog: over the past 17 years there have been 4,213 deaths in US National Parks—the largest category being drowning.

Why am I mentioning this? Because recently I added a donation to the library’s collection titled Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon by Michael Ghiglieri (NATURE/ENVIRONMENT). You wouldn’t think that a book published in 2012 would still be popular on Amazon and in local public libraries. This one is. Maybe it’s because US national parks receive over 325 million visits per year.

Another expert on the topic might be Andrea Lankford, former park ranger and author. Look for her autobiography Ranger Confidential: Living, Working and Dying in the National Parks (BIOGRAPHY).
 
Coincidentally, but not in Coffman’s collection is a brand new book, A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure by Kevin Fedarko. Reviews say that if you liked Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods you’ll like this one.