Outside Podcast

For centuries, the Devil’s Highway—a waterless pathway through desert in southern Arizona—was one of the deadliest places in North America, killing thousands of Spanish conquistadors, gold prospectors, and migrants. Construction of a circumnavigating railroad allowed fatalities to taper at the end of the 19th century, but in the early 2000s, the route again became lethal. As immigration crackdown increased along other sections of the U.S.–Mexico border, illegal immigrants resorted to using the desert for entry, unaware that it would kill them. One infamous modern tragedy along the Devil’s Highway took place in spring 2001, when a large group, led by an experienced guide, set out from the Mexican border town of Senoyta. The disturbing outcome—and many others like it—helped researchers develop the Death Index, a new model for predicting dehydration fatalities.

Thirst is an unpredictable threat. In its early stages, it’s much like mild hunger. For centuries, hydration was as much superstition as science. But historical events at Devil’s Highway—a notoriously deadly path in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona—are proof of dehydration’s deadly risk. It was 1905 when Pablo Valencia, a gold prospector in his 40s, came stumbling into a geology camp, desperate for water. Valencia had spent the past six days wandering a 110-degree desert, where water sources can be separated by 100 miles, alone. He shouldn’t have been alive, but he was. Geologist William John McGee helped nurse Valencia back to health, bearing witness to the excruciating reality of what happens to the body while dying of thirst. In this episode, we dive into the history of a desert that claimed thousands of lives, as well as the ways this particular tale has forever altered modern understanding of the limits of dehydration.

One of the most famous accidents in wingsuit history.

Most of the time, when lightning makes the news, it’s because of an outlandish happening, seemingly too strange to be true. Like the park ranger who was struck seven times. Or the survivor who also won the lottery (the chances of which are about one in 2.6 trillion). Or the guy who claimed lightning strike gave him sudden musical talent. This is not one of those stories. This is about Phil Broscovak—who was struck by lightning while on a climbing trip with family in 2005—and the reality of life post-strike. In this intriguing episode, we investigate lightning strike recovery and the confounding, bizarre science that only hints at what Phil and other survivors endure. “You become a bag of shattered glass, really,” he says.

This thrilling re-creation of the classic hypothermia feature by Peter Stark brings the listener through a series of plausible mishaps on a bitterly cold night: a car accident on a lonely road, a broken ski binding that foils a backcountry escape, a disorienting tumble in the snow, and a slow descent into delirious hypothermia before (spoiler alert!) a dramatic rescue. "I started thinking about how one little mistake leads to another and another in an accumulation of mistakes that leads to an untenable situation," says Stark. "Frozen Alive" is a fascinating, accurate description of our physiological response to extreme cold, deepening listeners’ respect for how the human body metamorphoses when cooled.

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