Big Walls, Swift Waters

In his 34 years with the National Park Service, Charles R. "Butch" Farabee rose from protection ranger to superintendent and responded to more than 900 search and rescue missions; 10 years and 800 of those missions were in Yosemite National Park. Butch was the recipient of the Harry Yount Lifetime Achievement Award for exemplifying the best of the National Park Service ranger tradition. He is the bestselling co-author of Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite and author of Death, Daring, and Disaster: Search and Rescue in the National Parks. Butch Farabee lives in Tucson, AZ.

FromThe Wall Street Journal, "Summer Reads for Your Inner Nerd," July 29-30, 2017:Elevator Pitch: "Butch" Farabee has participated in over 900 missions with Yosemite Search and Rescue. In this book, he chronicles those that his team and others have undertaken. Some stories end relatively favorably, like that of an Austrian climber who was rescued by helicopter from El Capitan—and who managed to have his severed thumb reattached. Others end in tragedy (you can tell by the foreboding synopses, like "A peaceful rafting trip goes terribly wrong," that precede the stories). All of these cautionary tales are followed by a "Takeaway" section, which explains mistakes that triggered the crisis ("disobeyed a warning sign," "wore the wrong boots").Very Brief excerpt:"As day eight dawned, [photographer Galen Rowell and master climber Warren Harding] knew they were in true trouble, and might not survive. Rowell was complete soaked, his toes and fingers totally numb, but he still hoped to make it down the 1,400 feet of snow-covered cliff to the base of Half Dome."