National Park After Dark - Death, She Wrote ft. Randi Minetor

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

What started off as a 1990’s National Park roadtrip across the West turned into a successful series of books. Randi Minetor joins us to speak about her journey with death in the US National Parks and highlights the importance on mindful recreation. An author of over 90 books, Randi is renowned for her “Death in” works that focus on the stories of visitors who perished in the parks.You can find Randi Minetor’s books in National Park visitor’s centers or your local bookshopsFor a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping.Quince: Use our link to get free shipping and 365-day returns.Lume Deodorant: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with@lumedeodorant and get 15% off with promo code NPAD at LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We have another interview for you today, and it's a really cool one. It's very exciting. It's another book recommendation interview. We love having authors on our podcast, and today is really exciting because she is not only an incredible author, but she is someone that you probably know her books. Here. Oh. Oh. Do you want to?

Oh. If you're on YouTube, if you're on YouTube, you can see Danielle is holding up Death and Zion National Park and Death and Rocky Mountain National Park. And you also might recognize these titles of books because I think they've both been referenced in our podcast before. And we've had these on a recommendation list on our website before. And she is someone that we're pretty familiar with for the podcast. Yeah. And I've seen her works before we even started the show in National Park Visitor Center bookshops and all over the place. And her name is Randy. Minotaur. So you may be familiar with her already. Yeah. And she's here today to speak with us. She is

born and raised in Rochester, New York, but her and her husband went off on a adventure to visit the national parks in 1992. And while they were there, her husband, who's a photographer, was traveling with her. And they decided eventually that these trips were so inspiring that they wanted to travel to every single national park. And eventually it created this idea to start writing about them. Yeah. And I think she said she started with birding, which I think a lot of us can relate to just as. After my own heart. Yeah. It's like a gateway drug, I think. Bird is. Birding. Yeah. Don't you think? Kind of. Yeah. It's such a, it's such an activity that everyone can do no matter what. Like you can, you don't have to physically.

you can look out your window and do it. You can sit outside in your yard and do it. Birding is everywhere. Birding is everywhere. And birders are everywhere. Yeah. I wouldn't. Yeah. It's kind of actually a little alarming. But that's okay. I haven't gotten there yet, but maybe I will. But yeah. I have faith. So Randy is a very accomplished author. She's written over 90 books. 90. That is incredible. I can't even write one. But we have time. We do. So she began her writing journey at a really, really young age.

And of course, it has evolved into what it is today. She has written books not only about death in parks, but like we kind of talked about birding and hiking guides. She talks about, I don't want to give it away. But she also wrote another genre for a little while. that's spicy John. So spicy. And she also did some hiking guides and disaster books and Lauren Legend books.

And we'll get into it during the interview. But she is a fantastic writer and a kindred spirit because she has a lot in common with us. And her and her husband have been to over 300 of the National Park units here in the United States. And it shows through her writing. She's super knowledgeable. And we were so excited. when we connected and we're really thankful for this conversation. So without further ado, drum roll, welcome Randy Minotaur to National Park After Dark.

Thank you, Randy, so much for being with us here on National Park After Dark. It's such a cool moment for us. Oh, and for me to actually talk to you both. This is terrific. Thank you so much for getting in touch. When I saw your name on our email, it's like, I immediately. I immediately screenshot it to Cassie. I'm like, look, who wants to talk to us? Because I actually have a bunch of your books. Oh, look at this. Yeah, I have a bunch and we just absolutely love them.

And obviously, they've served as a big inspiration for our show. So thank you so much for being here. And thank you so much for your support. I was telling Cassie earlier that every time you mentioned me on the air, I get a little bump in my books. sales. So I get a, I get the after dark bump. Like, oh, they must be talking about me again. Like some people hear buzzing in their ears and you get notifications of your books being bought and read. Right. Exactly. It's amazing. Yeah, I was, I mentioned a little bit earlier before we hopped on the call, but I have a few on my bookshelf too. You can't see from here. But one of them in particular, I was taking an avalanche course in the Mount Washington area. And we were talking all about tragedies and rescues and things that can go wrong when you're outside. And part of the

meeting spot was in one of the visitor centers that was there. And they had a big book section. And right there, like front and center was your book, Death in Mount Washington. And I just grab it. It was staring at me. I swear, the whole time I was there, I was like, I have to get that one. And so now I have it on my bookshelf. Oh, that's wonderful. I love getting sightings, you know, but my sightings of my books, friends text me from national parks and say, look, look, what's in the bookstore? It's great to know because otherwise, how would I know if it's actually there? But that's, that's great news. And thank you for telling me that. Of course. And we, of course, know you as a prolific writer, as we just alluded to a little bit. And of course, your interests really align with ours. But can you tell us a little bit about your background and your upbringing and just before you got to be the writer that we all know you by today? Sure.

I started writing when I was just a typical suburban kid whose parents were terrified of the outdoors. So they would say to me, what do you mean you want to go outside? So, but when I was eight years old, my brother, who was 16, brought home an assignment. He had to write a five-paragraph theme for English class, which is an introduction, three paragraphs, and a conclusion. And that sounded like fun to me, if you can imagine that at eight years old. So I wrote one about spring cleaning, and my brother read it. And then he walked over and showed it to my mother, who said, what book did you copy this out of?

and I said I didn't. No, I wrote this. And so my brother took it and handed it in with his and said, my eight-year-old sister wrote this, is this good? And the teacher gave me a B-plus. Even though you were in her class. Right, right. So, so, so that was great. You know, it was the, the first boost there. And I've been, I've just been writing constantly ever since. I wrote erotic friend fiction in high school. I wrote an entire stage crew version of Jesus Christ Superstar that starred me, of course, as the martyrs, you know, all kinds of crazy things like that. And when I was 19, I sold my first story. So that's amazing. There's not a lot of people at 19 can say that they were sold their first story at that age. No, that's true. And yeah, it wasn't it, well, I guess it was kind of fiction.

It was porn. I mean, I ran out of money in college. Yeah, I ran out of money in college and a TA said to me, I can hook you up. And I wrote two pieces. I got a lot of money. Hey, it's a big job. That sells, honey. Right. Couldn't do it now, but boy, I could do it then. So that was the beginning. Yeah. And after that, after that it was really more, more like journalism. Right. Kind of went straight after that. Well, it's a cool, it's fun that you did that. I like, like you more.

It's a fun start. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you push the outside of that envelope and, yeah, things actually, things can happen. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances. irresistible love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice.

Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Yeah, well, of course, you've just really alluded to the fact that you have come a long way since that time. we know you best from your death in series, just like I, you know, I just showed, I think I have three of them just off the bat. And in your biography, you said that a trip in the 1990s, early 90s really changed your life. And it looks like that reflected in your writing. So can you, can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. When we got married, my husband and I, we delayed our honeymoon for a couple of years until we could afford it. And, Our honeymoon was to fly to Minneapolis, rent a car, and drive out west to Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore and the Badlands and do, Grand Teton, do all that whole loop that people do. And I fell head over heels in love with the national parks.

I mean, who wouldn't, honestly? And it makes me laugh now when we see the Yelp reviews. but you know, you get to Yellowstone and there's buffalo walking in front of you and there's an elk sticking its head in the window of your car and there's bears over there. Not to mention the views. It's just, it's where I wanted to be. Of course, life doesn't work that way usually, but it took me about 10 years to figure out how to make the National Parks the centerpiece of my life. And luckily, the folks, at Globe Pequot Press have been extraordinarily supportive of that.

And we've had a very mutually beneficial relationship. I think that's a story that everyone listening can resonate with, ourselves included, because we had, when you were talking about when you said the Badlands and that I, we went on a trip to the Badlands a few, I guess it was a few years ago now. I almost said a few months. And I just remember going to South Dakota. and seeing it for the first time in such a different, I had never seen it before, but then seeing the badlands, I was like, wow, this is incredible. And the teetons were a place that I lived for a little

while and I loved that. And I think that when people step into national parks for the very first time, especially if you're in a suburban area, a city or just somewhere that doesn't have like these enormous landscapes and wildlife, you walk in and you're like, what world did I just walk into? What is this? Right. Yeah, that's exactly it. And Yellowstone in particular is so weird. Oh, there's so much. A shock. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's the weirdest landscape at that point that I had ever seen. And not, not fully understanding why that was. You know, why, why is everything boiling here? And how hot is that? Well, it's boiling. You know, it really does, it changes the way you think about the world when you see something like that.

So that was, that was a real turning point. And then indeed, the badlands are so gorgeous. The other thing. An underrated park, really. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And I had just started birding at that point. I'd just taken it up after leaving my husband, Nick and I both worked in the theater. And he still does. He spent his career in the theater. but I had just left the theater to actually make some money. And I suddenly discovered, well, Nick said, you know, geez, you've got all this free time now. You might like birding because, you know, evenings, that's all, you know, just a blur when you're working in the theater.

But suddenly I had all that time on my hands. And, you know, being able to get out and go birding was just, you know, one more step towards this life that I eventually would figure out how to how to put together. I appreciate that because I'm a new birder. Oh, welcome. Thank you. I've like, I have my Merlin app, so I listen to them. And then I've been, I guess we bought a house last year.

And I guess the location that I live in is like prime birding territory. And there's actually birding groups that will go on walks up my road. And they look around. And I've had the pleasure of being here in every season. So when there's no leaves on the trees and all the birds are coming back in the spring, I get to see everything that's really around before the trees kind of block them all. But it's been a fun. I appreciate the birding life.

I'm new, but I'm here. Oh, no, it's wonderful. And it's something that you can do for the rest of your life. Wherever you are. It's a wonderful thing. Yeah, you don't ever really age out of it. you can always look out a window. Yes.

It's a wonderful thing. We've been all over the country, birding, at this point. And I've had the pleasure of writing books about birding in New England and in Florida. And then our birding, Texas just came out yesterday as well. Yesterday. Yeah. September 3rd was a red letter day here. Yeah.

So it's wonderful. You know, birding is very. portable because the birds are different in a lot of other places. Do you have a favorite bird? Oh, I couldn't possibly. Cedar Waxwing. Okay. Everyone has the favorite bird. I'm like, what do you mean? Right. Like, oh, no, you know, how could you, how could you choose one bird? I mean, they're spectacular, but I love a Cedar Waxwing. I mean, they're a beautiful bird, and they have this crazy thing they do in the winter where they wait for the berries to ferment on the trees.

And then they eat them and they spend the whole winter drunk. They're little winos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. They're living their best life up there, you know? And it's a gorgeous little bird and they live in big flocks and they're just a lot of fun.

Well, I think that a lot of people can relate to the birding life because like Cassie said, she's new. But as soon as she kind of announced that, people came out of the woodwork. our birding audience. But I do have to say that I don't know if everyone can relate to having that experience of going to the national park, your first national park loop, having this world open up to you, you have this birding opportunity or hobby, and then you decide to write about people dying in national parks. Like, how did that? How did that happen? Well, you know, for that, I have to thank my agent,

She and I went to book expo back when they had book expo in 2015, I think it was, and sat down with some of my editors at Globe Pequot and some of the editors I hadn't met yet. And they had just decided, because the National Park Centennial was coming up the following year, they were the publishers of Death in Yellowstone, which is the gold standard for for the Death in the Parks books. And they'd never done another one, you know. And they suddenly thought, huh, maybe this is a thing we should expand. So, and my agent, God bless her, you know, Regina just got right in there and said, well, Randy

will do that. And so they assigned me death in Glacier National Park. That was the first one for me. And it kind of opened a big, big door. because even just at Glacier at that point, 264 people had died in Glacier National Park of things they shouldn't have died of normally since the park had been founded. So there was just this wealth of information. There are people who disappeared and were never found and people falling off of things

and avalanches and people falling into cracks in glaciers and freezing to death in three hours. hours, all this wild stuff and the bears. So the bears. The bears. So it was just a wealth of information and it really opened my eyes to what was possible. The wonderful thing is that that book took off. It, you know, came out at exactly the right time, right at the park centennial. And it drew quite an audience and a lot of national interest.

So when I went back and said, how about Zion? on. They said, yes, let's do more of these. And now there are seven of these books that I've written. And there are several others, of course, with other publishers and so on. So it sounds like, and I could be wrong, but it sounds like you didn't really have a morbid fascination beforehand or did you? And this just kind of opened the door wider to that. Yeah, I did not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is not the thing I would have thought of immediately to write about. But the more you get into it, the more you do this research, and the more you start to see trends in this, you know, then my science head kind of kicks in. Well, is this true, you know, these things they happen to people in Glacier, that they don't, somehow they don't know that a rushing river is a river, even though it's called a creek.

and they don't know that the water is like 33 degrees because it's all glacial melt. So they go, you know, flailing around in this creek and the next thing they know, they're rushing down the river, you know, and freezing to death in minutes. This is the kind of thing that's like, gee, does this happen in other places? Do people not truly not understand what they're getting themselves into? And you find over and over that, no, they don't. They don't have any idea. They don't know that a cross-country ski adventure in the back country in Rocky Mountain National Park is going to be different from how it is at home in Minnesota. Yeah.

And, you know, two people who thought they were going to come across cabin after cabin where they would find food and supplies and wood to make fires and all this. And there's none of that in Rocky Mountain. It's just a huge wilderness. So they got themselves terribly, terribly lost and frosted out. You know, these kinds of stories of people being completely out of their element and not trusting their own senses to see what's going wrong. That's a very interesting phenomenon from a strictly scientific perspective. And it's also, you know, terribly, terribly tragic. And people need to have their eyes open to that.

So my goal has been to tell, not just to, I've been accused of trying to profit over, off of people's, you know, hardship. And that's not my, believe me, profit is not really a thing in publishing most of the time. But warning people and saying, you know, do I have to slap you? Look around you. See what you're seeing. Listen to the Rangers. Understand what you're up against when you're adventuring in a national park.

Totally. And I think that that's such an interesting point that you bring up because, I mean, we feel you. We're in the same boat here with our podcast is that these stories are interesting and they are very intriguing to research, especially why and how these things are happening. But there is this underlying tone of let's figure out why it's happening so we can educate and not have this happen to more people. But also I think that the parks create this environment that because it's a point. park. Sometimes people expect it's managed by the government. It is labeled as a park, other parks, a state park, an amusement park, whatever. They usually have facilities in these things there and people I feel like almost have this. It's a false sense of security. Yeah, like a false sense of security. And it's the safety that they feel when they're in these parks because they're in these government run in park boundaries, places where you think that you might be. safe, but it's totally opposite. It's just preserved land to for wildlife and for landscapes and to keep it the way it is. It's not these places that people, I think, go into it thinking that they are.

But so you've written seven books or seven of these books. And you've had lots of different types of stories that you've covered. Is there any in particular that have really stood out to you the most? Well, there's, you know, the, the scariest story, I think, is the night of the Grizzlies in August, 1967 in Glacier National Park. The night that when, when it had never happened before that Grizzlies had attacked a park patron, we can assume that at some point before Glacier was a park, people got attacked by grizzly bears on occasion. But, since it's founding as a park, the National Park Service did a thing that now seems absolutely abhorrent to us. They tossed all the trash into these big garbage dumps, and then they set up

bleachers around them. Made it a little showing for ever came. Right. And people would watch as the bears came in at dusk and chowed down on all this garbage. I mean, now it's horrifying. And if you ask anybody at the parks, they say, yeah, that was really embarrassing. But those bears became habituated to people and people giving them food. So eventually, a couple of them decided people were food. And on one night, two grizzlies, 20 miles apart for no, just total coincidence, as far as anyone can tell, attacked two campers and ate them. I mean, they found remains. Poor Julie Helgeson actually was still alive when they found her,

but mostly in the bare stomach. Yeah, this was by far one of the most popular episodes we have ever done. We did it a couple years ago, but. I think it was like episode 13. It's like very beginning. Very beginning. Yeah. But just as you're highlighting right now, the exact reasons why it is so memorable because it's so almost unbelievable. And yet, yeah, it definitely has cemented its place in our listeners' minds as most memorable, horrifying, intriguing, all of the above. Traumatizing. You are familiar with, of course. But yeah, that's definitely up there for us, too, as far as. the deaths that we have come across in the parks as well.

Yeah, it's a, no, it's a, it's a terrifying thing. And there are certainly other instances now of people being killed by wild animals in national parks and outside of national parks. But that one is, is so unusually creepy. Yeah. And luckily, nothing like that, nothing like that has happened again. and the parks made massive changes, thank goodness, so that the sort of Disney-fying Disney thought, I should say,

of the national parks has long passed now, and they truly are places where wild things can remain wild and don't have to be a threat to anybody. Yeah, and the park service looks at bears in a totally different light because before the night of the Grizzlies, they're like, oh, they're just Grizzlies. Bears, like kind of how society has deemed black bears just black bears right now, which we also know is not true that black bears could be very dangerous too. But if people really thought that

grizzly bears weren't dangerous at a time. And this night of the grizzlies really was a turning point for people to take them more seriously, which now that people know this story, just like kind of circling back to what we said before. But now that people know this story and are educated, They can make changes. And now we haven't seen that. Knock on wood, hopefully ever again. Right. Exactly. And, you know, there are isolated incidents of there's a mountain lion that ran across a path in Rocky Mountain, grabbed a child who was hiking with his family. And they fought, you know, mountain lion is about 140 pounds. So very fightable. You know, you can ward off a mountain lion. And they did. But the poor child was so terrified that he. vomited and choked on his own vomit. And that's what...

Yeah. Yeah, which is a shame. And, you know, and then there's the people who don't, who haven't figured out that buffalo are wild animals and are dangerous. Every year in Yellowstone, every year. Good God. How many times do we have to tell you, you know? Yeah.

Don't put your child on a buffalo. Thank you. Right, right. Don't walk up to a buffalo. and try to don't pet the fluffy cows, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's inexplicable and yet it keeps happening over and over. Yeah. I have to ask about kind of diverting a little bit about your writing process because, of course, there's a ton of research that goes into every book. And it reads not as, it's not listical. You emphasize, you, you emphasize, you,

go into a lot of these stories. And also, I mean, you can't go into, like you said, 264 deaths in a single book. So which stories do you choose to highlight versus not? Where do you get your information, et cetera? I'm just really, really intrigued by your process. Sure. I discovered that most newspapers are now online, that their entire archives are online and very searchable.

through newspapers.com and newspaperarchive.com. So some of the parks want nothing to do with me. So they don't, even if they have a list of deaths, they won't share it. They don't want to talk to me. They don't want to connect me with people who do search and rescue. So I'm really on my own to build that list. And I mostly do it through newspaper stories to start. And I create a big spreadsheet with all the names of all the people.

who have died and what they died of and when, and then I start looking to see anything I can find. And there's lots of little nooks and crannies online that you can search in. I mean, from findagrave.com to social security records to, you know, obituaries, all kinds of things to start to piece those things together. And honestly, the stories that I'm most like, to cover the ones where there's the most information. Okay. So if there was a lot of news coverage, if there are reports in the mountain accidents database or the airline database, you know, the plane crash databases that are out there, if I can,

you know, put those things together, then they make a better story. And those are the stories I'm going to tell, the ones where there's really some something to say. There are, unfortunately, some stories out there that are probably very, very interesting, but nobody made any record of them. Sometimes I use the Freedom of Information Act. That was particularly helpful in Zion, where the park didn't even return my emails telling them I was writing this book, but they do carry it in their bookstore. So it's so interesting. Yes, isn't that interesting? So if I ever get to do a second edition, I think I'll get more support from them. But yeah, the main thing is trying to find, oh, when I did death in the Everglades,

Florida has this wonderful thing called the Sunshine Act, where if you make a request for information, they have to respond to you within three weeks. So that was very helpful in putting together stories about old crimes and murders. and because the Everglades are really, really murdery. So there's a ton, a ton of stuff down there. So, you know, being able to contact police departments and say, I want this file and have it actually show up. That's a great thing when you're covering Florida man and his many exploits.

Yeah, I have that book. And what I loved, one thing I loved about the beginning of it was you opened it up and you said, this isn't going to be a story about all of these misadventures in the park, what the Everglades have are a lot of murder. And then you go into a lot of crimes and things that have happened there. And you said that a lot of the national parks have not been very supportive of you. In your writings, why do you think that have they ever responded? Have they ever said? Why? Well, you know, a couple of them dismiss me as I don't have time.

time for this. You know, okay, which, which may well be, you know, there are a lot of different kinds of communications officers out there and some of them are, some of them want to be involved in this, and some of them just have too much on their plates. But when I contacted Acadia National Park, the PR director there said, okay, you're an American citizen, you have a right to this information, how can I help you? And I worked with her and the chief rain. there. And honestly, you know, there's not a lot of death in Acadia, but I had really good coverage of what there was. I mean, they just opened their files to me, which was wonderful. That must be so helpful. Yes. Glacier gave me their list and said, you know, via Condios,

have fun. Yeah. Zion never responded. Everglades never responded. Baxter State Park up in Maine. clearly they just didn't have the staff to deal with my request for information. So I actually went up to Millenocket and sat in there in one newspaper's dusty attic and went through page after page of physical newspapers to find what I needed there. Also, the library in Bangor, Maine was also extremely helpful. and I also spent an afternoon going through their, you know, all of their micro-feesh. So, yeah, it was a, it's a very interesting process. And what I really have been surprised at is how people don't want to talk to me.

I mean, not just the park staff that I get, but the people who have been involved in accidents where somebody died generally have not. been interested in talking to me, except a couple up in Katadn area. That one in particular, a woman named Carol Newland, who camped out with her husband, her new husband one night, and they camped under a tree in a big campground. And there was an electrical storm overnight, and they were struck by lightning. And he was killed, and she was scarred for life. She has huge. scars down the side of her body. And I read about that and thought, gee, I wonder, you know, could she still exist somewhere? Could she still be alive? And I found her. She's a psychiatrist in northern Colorado. And she was more than happy to talk with me. And when I was out there

working on Death on Rocky Mountain the next year, we got together and had lunch. So, yeah, she's a very interesting, very interesting woman and very forthcoming about what had happened. So, yeah, some people want to talk. Some people just never want to think about it again. And I get that. Yeah, I can understand the mixed, especially coming from people who are directly involved in incidents like that, totally understandable having that, you know, everyone's a different type of thing about wanting to share their experiences. But it's just really interesting to hear your, the feedback you've gotten from the parks directly because it's like, if they don't want to talk to you, I imagine, I can't imagine

how they feel about us. But, hey, we find that people hearing about these things garners more interest in wanting to visit the parks. That's been our experience. So, hey, I, if they don't want to talk to. you then so be it but i think there's a missed opportunity there because clearly your books are really successful and there is an interest in this subject so right and i imagine that your books are also giving them some income by sitting in their stores too that is true absolutely they're also

profiting off of it as well i will say though i feel like i i when we've met you mentioned like Danielle how the park service would feel about us. But we've definitely been in parks and I've met rangers who have been super nice. And so parks reach out to us too. Yeah. And we've had parks reach out to us too. So I feel like there's there might be some people within. And I get it. It's a tough subject, especially. I mean, I imagine if you're telling a death story that's on someone's watch who you're trying to contact. They're like, no, I don't want to be like a part of that. But then I also think that there's a lot of people that are probably very interested and maybe just are not the people that you're in contact with, but it, uh, or would be the person to contact, like they're just not part of that role.

But it is, it's very, um, it's very interesting that they haven't been supportive when then you hear or see that your books are in their shop. It's like, hey, now, now you know who I am. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I have, I have, I have, even, you know, in pitching a new park, I have even said, you know, the other parks find this very profitable. Yeah. So, you know, you might actually benefit from this. So it's, yeah, it's a, it's a very fine line that you walk with, with this. But I have, I have, you know, talking about people who, how they, how they respond to, you know, okay, you've read this. Now do you want to go see this park, every once in a while

hit somebody who, you know, who says, oh, I read your book and I'll never, never go to Rocky Mountain. Like, no, that's not the point. Right. You're totally missing it. Don't, you know, don't underpack and go climb a 14,000 foot peak. That's when I'm telling you. I'm not telling you. Take the lessons in these stories. Right. Exactly. Exactly. I'm not telling you that the park is

scary or dangerous because they aren't. you know, unless you really do some foolish things or make some terrible mistakes. Yeah. There's risk mitigation that can be done on these adventures. And learning from other people's mistakes is a great way to prepare yourself if you want to go into these locations and doesn't necessarily, yeah, doesn't necessarily mean you have to be afraid, just prepared. Yeah. And how do you choose the parks that you want to cover?

Well, I have done some research on a number of parks where there just aren't enough deaths to make a book, you know, or that the deaths that are there are not big stories, but, oh, I tripped and fell. You know, I was hoping to do death in Hawaii Volcano's National Park, but the deaths there are not because people got covered with lava. you know, they're mostly slip and fall kinds of things or heart attacks, and that's just not a book. Yeah, that's hard to make a whole book out of. Yeah, so it's a question of, you know, where a couple of them I have been approached by specific editors, both Acadia and Katadn, the editor of Downeast Books, asked me to do those, which was nice. but mostly I'm going back to my editor of the of death and glacier and saying gee how about this park I'm hoping to do death and death valley because it's loaded with stuff

and all types of reasons too yes yeah exactly from back and you know the gold rush and people murdering each other you know and the pioneers going across to present day with people just being, you know, walking out into a 130 degree heat with no water. Right. Yeah. It kind of runs the gamut there as far as information and material. So, well, we'll look out for it. Yeah. For sure. We'll have our eyes out for it. So with all these stories that you write and potentially another death book, you have like accidents, plane crashes, animal encounters, missing persons. Is there a certain topic that you find that you enjoy researching and writing about the most, or are they all?

Oh, they're all really interesting. Plane crashes are really fascinating, particularly Death in the Everglades was loaded with plane crashes. And not just the little, you know, not a twin engine Cessna, a whole jet airliner filled with hundreds of people. Yeah. It's, you know, they're terrible tragedies, especially when they're the result of somebody doing something just impossibly stupid. And there's one in particular that's quite famous that actually put the airline, which is not coming to my head right at the moment, but the airline, I think it was Airtran, put them out of business. Because the people who were loading cargo, aside from luggage, but other kinds of. industrial cargo put a bunch of oxygen, you know, the oxygen thing that drops down.

Yeah, those that each have a little oxygen tank on them. And they put a bunch of those on the plane that were supposed to be empty and they weren't. And they were supposed to be essentially deactivated so they wouldn't spark to, you know, to start the oxygen flowing. And they weren't. and they blew up. This sounds very familiar and I think I researched it. Oh, probably.

I think you did it on Patreon like years ago because they had. Please keep talking because I forget. You did two in the Everglades. One was they were singing Christmas carols waiting to rescue. Yes, but that wasn't this one. This one, the plane went down nose first. The whole back of it blew off. It went down nose first into the Everglades muck and just closed up like a tin can.

This is the one where there's a memorial for them, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And there were no bodies. There were, you know, it was just, you know, bits and pieces of things. They found fingernails and, you know, some skin with a tattoo on it and things like that.

And we're doing all kinds of, you know, trying. to identify all of the people that were on the plane. So yeah, it's one of the most spectacularly awful stories I've ever researched, especially because it was just because somebody was incredibly stupid and put a box on the plane that shouldn't have been on the plane. So preventable. Yeah. Preventable human error.

Never should have happened. Yeah. So I have to ask with that being, plane crashes being one of the most interesting. topics for you. Are you more afraid of flying now after researching? No, actually. No, I, you know, I'm kind of fatalistic about it. I mean, if I'm going down, I'm going down. That's my view. Once you're up there, you're up there. That's my view 100%. We just flew to Hawaii and back. And yeah, I mean, I watch TV. It's, yeah. I know you had asked in the questions that you had sent me. You had asked if I'm more paranoid.

Yes, that was going to be my follow-up question. I mean, you have researched hundreds and hundreds of deaths in any way a person, virtually, any way a person can die in a park. And you are an avid park visitor yourself. So are you, I would think you're more prepared than you were before. you started this this journey but are you more paranoid no i'm not because i'm i'm so well informed you know i know exactly what not to do and sometimes i can see myself doing the thing i should not do you know like wait a second yeah yeah you know the ranger just said don't go there why am i going there

you know i mean i'll i'll see the bird another day so there are you know there are you know there are things like that. But no, I know to stay behind guardrails. I know that I personally cannot climb a 14er. You know, I'm just, that's just not going to happen. I carry the 10 essentials when I hike, you know, so I'm completely prepared for whatever's going to happen. That doesn't mean we haven't done some foolish things. Nick and I did a hike in 2008, 2009, before I started working on these books in Big Bend National Park, where we wanted to see the Kalima Warblank. and the only way to see a Kalima warbler in the United States is to go up this one trail where you're going from about 5,400 feet to about 7,000 feet,

and it's going to be 100 degrees because you have to do it in May. And we carried a gallon of water each and we ran out before we got to the top. And we saw the bird. I mean, okay. I would hope so after all of that. Right. Didn't have the sense. We were so delirious.

though, from lack of water that we didn't have the sense to take a picture of it. Oh, no. And take care in all this equipment and we just never took a picture of it. So, you know, but there was a moment where I thought, you know, I could die here. And no one would even know. So that's a, you know, those are things that don't happen to me anymore because I'm older and wiser and have all this information. So what? And so I imagine walking down from that hike was pretty rough.

Terrifying. Yeah. It was because we were so dehydrated. It was 104 degrees and we were at altitude that we hadn't really prepped for. And yeah, that was that was not a good idea. I had a moment where I thought, okay, well, if Nick goes down because, you know, I'm strong, but if my husband goes down, I will get my GPS coordinates off of the phone, and I will text that back to somebody in Rochester, New York, and tell them to call the police.

Well, there was no cell service. There was no internet. How the heck was I going to do that? So another lesson, you know, you can't depend on technology at that point. You've really got to just take good care of yourself. Be prepared. I mean, you had a lot of water, but in retrospect for the for the heat of that day and the altitude and hike, it's just not enough. But man, that's scary.

And that's a story that you hear a lot in any type of desert area, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas. It's definitely something that I think every year we hear of people who go out with not enough. water or go out in heat and have dehydration issues. And it's definitely a common occurrence that people should definitely be aware of. And I think it's a really good example of being prepared. Well, yeah. And you don't realize it doesn't take days to become dehydrated. It takes a couple of hours. Yeah. That's the thing I did not understand until I was standing there in, you know, in the heat with no shelter thinking, holy cow, how do you know, how. that I get myself here. Yeah. Well, speaking of being prepared, that's a part of your book series that

is so great is you speak a lot about being prepared. And you have sections dedicated to saying, point blank, hey, I don't want to include you in another edition of this book. So here is how to best be prepared when you're visiting these places and how to best avoid getting into circumstances is where some people did not come out alive from. So that I think is really the key part of when a lot of people hear not only about the subject of your books or the subject of our podcast, a knee-jerk reaction could be like you kind of mentioned a little bit ago about, are you profiting off of this? This is like click baity, you're profiting off of this, you know, somebody's tragedy.

and that's not the point. Like you said, you're missing it. You're missing the entire point. The entire part of what I'm doing is trying to best prepare other people. So I think that that is just, I mean, you say it many times throughout the book. You say in the beginning, the end, it's sprinkled in throughout each book. And it's tailored to each park because, of course, every park is different. And different circumstances require a different set of, you know, things you have to do.

And dehydration, definitely, is something that can happen anywhere, but, you know, Southwest is, is where that's probably going to be at the most. And where do you think people, the lack of preparedness that people have going into the parks is something that we've seen throughout most of the history of the U.S. national parks. Do you think that is getting better or worse? Well, you know, National Park visitation is at the highest it's ever been. I got a news release the other day that it now represents $55 billion of visitors spend throughout the National Park system, which is incredible. You know, that part of it is great. but the more people are in the parks, the more there are people who really don't understand what they've entered.

And if I can get across to them even a little bit, you know, that you have to take precautions and you are responsible for taking care of yourself. We hear stories about people who get tired on a hike and call and expect. the rangers to come send a helicopter to pick them up. You know, things like that. You know, you see the people who think that there's a better photo of Yosemite Falls from the top, from the middle of the creek at the top of the falls. And so they weighed out there and boom, they go over the falls, you know. And you think, you know, how much around you do, you know,

How much peril do you have to put yourself in before you realize that's what you've done? Right. And there's only so much signage that the parks can put up. There's only so much instruction. And even if there's a sign right in front of you, how many times have you seen someone completely ignore it, disregard it and do what they want either way? And I think that a big part, that's just a point of contention throughout,

I think, the whole park system and it has been for years. because I believe it was in, like you said, the gold standard of the death books, Lee H. Whittlesey's death in Yellowstone. I think he opens with a newspaper article, just like you said, Disneyfying of the park. People expect there to be fencing in certain safety precautions. But then, you know, where do you draw the line? Then it's not a national wild landscape. It's a theme park. And that's not what these are about. and yeah, it's just, it's a really interesting, because there's, we want everyone to be safe, right? But this is a wild landscape with wild animals. And like you said, you have to take ownership of your own safety at some point.

Right, right. It's nobody else's responsibility to keep you safe in a national park or a wilderness or a national wildlife refuge. You know, that is on you. and it's not that hard. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Yeah.

You know, just don't do that dumb thing is really what it comes down to. I, you know, trying to describe this, I mentioned that my parents feared the outdoors. So my mother asked me when we went to Alaska, to Denali, you know, well, the animals that you saw, are they in pens or cages? No, no, they're wandering around. This is where they live. And we're coming into, we are the guests in their home. I'm working on a book now called The Bear at the Bird Feeder, which is about living in harmony with animals that are coming into urban areas

and essentially living in our backyards and how we can be safe, one, and how we can keep them safe as well. So there's that, you know, that same theme running through it is don't do stupid things don't you know go outside with with 10 pounds of hot dogs and feed them to bobcats right yeah you know it's it's just these things aren't got that hard no there are so there's so many things that are really avoidable that like you said just prepare don't sleep with food in your tent you know don't it's just like little things that you can do that will change that could change the outcome of your entire visit to the parks.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. I do think it is also important to mention for things. Like there's, of course, these stupid things that are so avoidable. But there's also this other thing of that if you are comfortable in the outdoors, if you are someone who follows everything and you know what to do, it's still possible. It could happen to anyone if you're not prepared.

And to not go into, especially back, back, places with this confidence of that nothing can happen and to always be prepared, tell people where you are, know where you're going, have maps, have some type of satellite radio if you're going to be gone, let people know when you're coming back. There's just things like there are things in the outdoors that could happen to anyone no matter your experience level, no matter how many times you've been to the same place that you've been and to just do like some type of risk mitigation, do everything you can to make sure that things will not go wrong, but expect that they could potentially. That's exactly it.

You know, I think of, I mean, there are things that absolutely could not be helped, could not be foreseen. You know, being Rocky Mountain National Park has whole areas where being struck by, literally a bolt from the blue, you know, a bolt of lightning when there's no clouds. Yeah, how do you prepare for that? I mean, that's a kind of thing you really can't prepare for. There's one poor guy at the top of Long's Peak who made it to the top and celebrated, you know, flung his arms out and here I am. And a 60 mile an hour gust of wind grabbed him and threw him right off the peak. Oh my gosh. Thanks. Yeah. I just a terrible. moment, you know?

Such a good moment, turned bad in one second. Right, exactly. I mean, there are things like that that you really, you just can't help. You know, there's the rock falling, you know, and you go through a fallen rock zone, and then an actual rock falls and crushes your car. You know, okay, you know, I'll give you those. But walking out into the wilderness in a teetable. shirt and jeans to climb a 14,000 foot peak with no food with you, but you have to expect

that's what you're going to get. You're not coming back from that and you know it walking out. Having a ranger say to you, don't go today, you know, this is not a good day. We're going to have flash floods later this afternoon. You shouldn't go scale that canyon. Yeah, and to listen to the people around you that know maybe more than you do that are giving you these warnings and these heads up about stuff. Right. And then also admitting to your own weaknesses. Knowing your own abilities.

Right. Which brings us to Angels Landing, which I'm sure you have talked about before. Yeah, the scariest place in Zion National Park where you're going across a fin, of stone about six feet wide with a 2,000 foot drop on either side. If you're prone to vertigo, as I am, if you're scared of heights, don't do this. You know, it's that simple. Okay, that's one thing you won't do. There's nothing wrong with saying, not for me. I mean, that's what I did.

I was there with a friend. And while she continued through the change section, and to the end, I sat my butt on scouts landing and I waited because I am a confident hiker, but I am not confident around heights. And I drew the line. Could I have done it? Probably. I would have been really uncomfortable.

And I think because of being so on edge, I would have been prone to making silly mistakes just because I'm so nervous. So I just, yeah, I had a great time. I watched the Condors, talk to a ranger, made some friends. Yeah. And just knowing your. Yeah. Not pushing yourself for the sake of credibility with your friends or that perfect Instagram

picture or whatever the hell, you know, people's motivations are. There's something to be said about pushing yourself and getting outside of your comfort zone, but we all know where that line is when that kind of challenge becomes too risky. And I think a lot of accidents that happen is when people ignore that and step over that line. And unfortunately, there's some pretty awful consequences of that. But I do want to ask you just because I know you said you didn't have a morbid sense of curiosity before you started this. I certainly did. And I was looking at a list of the book. Well, I guess two questions. How many books have you written? Number. Total 95. 95. Okay.

So out of the 95 books, I was looking at a few lists of your titles. And you have two that really stuck out to me aside from the death in books that we've been focusing on. One is cursed in New York. stories of the damned in the Empire State and the other is historic disasters of New England. So what do you mean you don't have a morbid sense of security? Oh my. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess I got a cop to that. I, you know, I'm not one, I don't go to horror movies, but I do like suspense. And, you know, in particular, I like suspense and I like folklore. Okay. And cursed in New York is those two things. You know, when, when you come down to it, it's not about ghosts because, one, I don't believe in ghosts. And two, the, you know, we really

wanted to focus on people who, people and things that were cursed. So we ended up, you know, talking about the Hope Diamond, which spent some time in New York and, and some other gems. And, and, the many productions of Shakespeare Scottish play, which we who spend time in the theater call it Shakespeare Scottish play. Everybody else knows it is, Macbeth. Oh, okay. Yes.

We know that. Yeah, yeah. Right. And the number of times that it played on Broadway and somebody broke a leg or, you know, the whole, you know, somebody got hit in the mouth with a sword and lost several teeth. You know, all kinds of things go on when you do Macbeth.

You know, so there's a lot of things like that. And then there's some ghost stories and, you know, some crazy things that go on. There's a cursed lake on Long Island. Things like that. So it was taking a journalistic look at these things, kind of debunked them, which was really sort of the point of that. But, you know, you get into historic disasters in New England and you're talking about huge, massive hurricanes and the molasses tank on the Boston Harbor that broke and, you know, covered half of Boston with molasses, you know, all kinds of crazy things like that. It's telling those stories that's fun for me.

Okay. Not so much that, I mean, people certainly died. But telling the story and what can we learn from this story? How did this go so terribly wrong? So those are the things that I tend to look for when I work on books like those. And that's clear. I mean, that's the foundation of all of the books. It seems like at least the ones we've been focusing on.

I know you just said you had a birding book come out yesterday. So maybe not that. But it's interesting that you're approaching it from that point of view. I think it's a lot more, I think it's a lot more relatable to a wider audience because we have found a big interest from, you know, we have a lot of people who don't even like the outdoors. You know, they'll categorize themselves as indoorsy, which is great. Okay. But they really like the subject of the stories because of this sense of curiosity around people perishing or dark historic events and things like that.

But to come at it from a different perspective of, you know, what happened here, what went wrong? What have we learned? Have we grown? Have we changed anything? What can we change? Moving forward, I think that's great. And I think a lot of people are really intrigued by that. And I think that's reflective in your work. I mean, you don't write 95 books if people aren't interested. Right. Well, yeah, that's the truth. People keep coming back for more. Yeah, and I'm always surprised to discover that I have a fan base for those kinds of things.

That there are people who just tell me, oh, I love all of your books. Like, holy cow, really? You've read all of my books. 95 is a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. So, yeah, it's very gratifying to know that people are responding to what I write. And if it's also saving some lives, so much the better.

I have a friend who was hiking in the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque. And somebody ahead of her was about to do something stupid. And the person with them said, haven't you read Randy Minuthor? books, don't do that. That's awesome. Really? Like real time. It's working.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. So that's, you know, it's very gratifying. If a few people think twice about what they're doing, then that's a really good thing. Yeah. Absolutely. Your next book that you mentioned really briefly, the bear at the bird feeder.

Yeah. Yeah. So you said if it saves a couple lives, you're speaking about human lives, but this next book, it seems like it may end up saving some some wild animal lives as well if you're talking about coexistence with wildlife and how to be better neighbors to our wildlife and coexist and be better neighbors to our animal friends. Is that, so is that what we should look out for you coming next or? Yes, that's the next.

That will be out, I think, about this time next year. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, I'm researching that now and learning a lot about people doing, you know, people luring animals into their yards that I'm hoping to discourage because a habituated animal is one that has to be destroyed. And that's just not fair. You know, if you're luring it in, why should the animal suffer the penalty?

So don't do that is what I'm hoping to get. cross. So yeah, and that's a book about, you know, bears and mountain lions and bobcats and deer, of course, and then down to squirrels and all the things in the squirrel family, chipmunks, groundhogs, all those little animals and, you know, how you can maybe discourage them from plundering your bird feeders. So, you know, all good information to have and real life problems, like daily problems that people have too. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm, well, this time next year, we'll put it in our calendar because I will be so excited to talk to you about that. Human wildlife coexistence is something that I have been fascinated with forever. Mostly because kind of like you said,

hey, just don't, like knock it off. Don't do that. And it seems so, it seems like so obvious of, hey, don't do this because then this will happen and that will result in something worse happening down the line. But it's also so complicated because, you know, if we all lived in a neighborhood, all three of us, and I had a bear safe garbage container, but you two didn't. I maybe have all the good intentions in the world for keeping wildlife safe. But if my neighbor doesn't, then that's still a problem for that bear. And it's, I think human wildlife coexistence is a lot of the focus is put on the animals, but it's really a human problem. And how we can work together to save wildlife is something that I've just always been really, really interested in. So I'm really looking

forward to reading that whenever it hits the shelves. Terrific. I will make sure you get a copy. Oh, perfect. Yeah, absolutely. Nice. Well, it sounds like yellow. Sorry. Yeah, it sounds like you're not even close to done with your books either because you also hinted at, death and death valley. So. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see if I can, you know, if my, my publisher feels that that's, that's a good one to do. Because in the end, they have the say. Yeah.

If not, let me ask, is there a national park that, that you have covered that, you know has, has potential for a death book? Oh, boy. That's a, I wasn't expecting that question. Oh, sorry. I would say the Grand Teton's. Yeah. Yeah. I think the Grand Teton's would be a good one. Yeah. Well, like you said, it's like it's the variety of deaths, right? And the information that's available. So I'm just thinking of the biggest parks visitation wise and statistically wise probably have a lot of deaths. But like you mentioned, you know, natural occurrences like heart attacks or slips or if you slipped and fell or something, it's it's hard because is that really content. for a book.

I would personally love... Yeah, that's true. I would love an Alaska-based book, but I know that the visitation is maybe if you, like, combined all the parks in Alaska in one. Yeah. To be death in Alaska.

That might be a way to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because that, yeah, in Alaska, you have the problem of all the parks that are way, way up in the north that you can't get to by car. so you have to take a bush plane and that's a and you have to be there for several days

and you have to be looking out for yourself. So that's a very interesting. And there's a lot of stuff going on in Alaska like there's weird murders and cases. There's bush planes that crash. There's animal attacks. There's different accidents in mountaineering. There's just Alaska is a wild, wild place.

Death in the Last Frontier Combine all the Combine all the parks That's very interesting Just think about it Just think about it Write that down But yeah

That would be my That would be like a really cool Just because I love Alaska so much And I understand You know if a park only has a couple thousand visitors a year Like what are you going to do? So I get that Yeah, but there may be a lot of fascination with, you know, even though people don't actually go there,

there's often a lot of fascination with the idea of going there. Yeah. You know, like all of us who are fascinated by Mount Everest, I'm never going to climb Mount Everest, but I've read every freaking book. Right. Yeah. And I think Alaska also, the interest with that is, you know, so many of our parks are so accessible to so many of us, which is wonderful. And that's, I think, a big point. You know, you want people to get

out and have real tangible experiences with wild places so that they care about them from a personal standpoint. It's hard to care about something if you don't have a personal experience with it or a personal tie to it for a lot of people. But with so I'm just thinking of the types of people that are attracted and actually go to Alaskan national parks are very different from. the people that you're going to see at Yellowstone or Shenandoah or Great Smoky Mountains. So there's also a different vibe, I think, of visitors. And maybe that translates in the deaths. I don't know.

I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. You're certainly taking more chances. Right. Yes. I feel like it would be more extreme if that makes sense. I don't know.

Yes. It absolutely does. Yeah, that may be. That's certainly worth looking into. I love that. We'll be looking out for it. Great. 20207. Yeah, here we come. For 2006. Yeah. However, how long does it take, like from, this will be our last question. Sorry for keeping you for so long. Not at all. But from when the initial seed is planted or the first idea comes, from the very beginning to when you can see it on the shelf at a National Park Visitor Center. How long generally does that take? Well, it really depends on the process at the publishers.

And first, I have to approve the subject matter. And that sometimes can take months. But once it's assigned and I have a contract, it's about a year. Okay. Yeah. Because I have a real system for researching these now. So I can gather information fairly quickly, assuming that some requests that I may actually get addressed. And then the writing for me is I write very fast.

It's one of the reasons I've been successful at this. You've had a lot of practice since you were eight. Yes. Yes, I am. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us. getting, you know, the opportunity to speak with you, it was wonderful. And we really appreciate all the work that you've put in to bringing all these books to us. I mean, they've, like we've said

before, it was a big inspiration for the show. We use your books all the time. And we recommend them all the time. And we will be singing your praises for the rest of time. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. What a pleasure to talk to you both, to kindred spirits who have actually read something I wrote. Yes. Thank you so much. This has been delightful. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at npadpodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our outsiders only community on Patreon or else. Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes.

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