Number of suicides in parks rises

Freshly unemployed, former business executive Bruce J. Colburn flew to the far northwest corner of Montana in search of a place to die.

In early October, he paid a hotel clerk to drive him into Glacier National Park. He spent the night in a campground and then made his way on foot to a valley between two deep glacial lakes. On a forested slope not far from the trail, he shot himself in the chest with a handgun, according to park officials.

Although his motivation remains unclear, investigators found evidence on a computer that the 53-year-old from Reading, Pa., had searched for information about suicide in Glacier park, according to Patrick Suddath, branch chief of ranger operations at Glacier.

"He clearly intended to come here for that purpose," said Suddath, who led an extensive search after the man was reported missing.

Colburn was one of at least 33 people who chose a national park in 2008 to end their lives. That number is higher than recent years, although the National Park Service hasn't consistently tracked suicide figures.

"People are looking for a place with solace and comfort and beauty, and we have a lot of them," said Lane Baker, the Park Service's chief of law enforcement, security and emergency services.

Park officials estimate more than 274 million people visited one of 391 national park units last year, the vast majority intent on seeing geysers, wild landscapes, the Statue of Liberty or a protected seashore and then leaving.

In 2008, though, a tiny, pained fraction came to end their life.

• A 46-year-old carpenter with cancer climbed into a canoe and vanished in Everglades National Park.

• A 49-year-old builder blamed the economy in a note he left for his ex-wife and attorney before killing himself at the edge of the woods at Georgia's Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

• A 65-year-old university biology professor disappeared into Utah's Canyonlands National Park, telling relatives in a note he was returning "my body and soul to nature."

• A 70-year-old woman left a suicide note in the trunk of her car at Arizona's Saguaro National Park before killing herself about a half-mile from a trailhead.

• Three people, in separate cases, jumped off a towering bridge at West Virginia's New River Gorge National River.