That's the hint dropped in Matt Weiser's excellent examination of the numerous deaths this year in the Yosemite Valley recently in the Sacramento Bee. He suggests that visitors to the park are just too removed from nature in their minds to recognize the risks of nature when they encounter them in life.
Visitorship is up — as an excellent graphic shows, reaching a record 700,000 for the month of July — but deaths are rising at an even faster rate.
"In the past, you had to be a pretty hardy soul to get out to some of these areas — almost a Grizzly Adams or Lewis and Clark," said [James] Kozlowski, [a professor at George Mason U], "Now, with the technology we have, some couch potato can get out into an area where they probably shouldn't be."
Weiser then finds facts to support the good professor's theory: Deaths in nature in California are growing at three times the rate of population in the state. He even finds a ranger who points out that it's possible to be fit on a machine in a gym, but still not know how to safely descend a rocky trail.
It's impressive reporting. Though when it comes to impressive, it's tough to beat a picture of any of the three single biggest hazards in the park — Vernal Falls, the Emerald Pool, or the Mist Trail.
[pic of Mist Trail from Bernard Siao]
Kit Stolz 
Richard Egan, the great Western writer for the NY Times, weighs in on this question today. Key graph:
“So, the conundrum: More than ever, an urban nation plagued by obesity, sloth and a surfeit of digital entertainment should encourage people to experience the wild — but does that mean nature has to be tame and lawyer-vetted?”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/nature-without-the-nanny-state/
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