Behind the beauty of Yosemite National Park: The real climbing deaths that may have inspired the setting in Netflix’s Untamed

Netflix’s Untamed opens with a woman’s body crashing into a climber’s rope line on El Capitan. That’s not a stretch of the imagination. Yosemite has seen over 1,300 recorded deaths since it became a national park, with more than 50 caused by falls just in the last 15 years.

The show follows ISB special agent Kyle Turner, played by Eric Bana, as he investigates what first appears to be a climbing accident but quickly turns into something far more complicated. Turner works the case alongside rookie ranger Naya Vasquez, digging through park politics, personal trauma, and a growing list of suspects.

The six-episode series was filmed in British Columbia but is set in Yosemite Valley, one of the most visited climbing destinations in the U.S. In June 2025, an 18-year-old seasonal worker died after falling from the Royal Arches route. Just days later, a 61-year-old hiker slipped and fell nearly 100 feet while navigating a detour near Mount Whitney. Both deaths made national headlines.

Untamed doesn’t pretend to be a documentary, but the backdrop it uses, deadly terrain, understaffed rangers, and isolated trails, is likely based on what actually happens in the park. The drama may be scripted, but the risk is not.

The fatal reality beneath Yosemite National Park: What might have really inspired Untamed

There’s nothing imaginary about death in Yosemite. While Untamed crafts a fictional mystery around a woman’s body falling off El Capitan, the show might have pulled straight from the park’s long and often overlooked history of real-life fatalities. In June 2025, just weeks before the show premiered, two separate incidents made national news.

An 18-year-old park employee, Grant Jeffrey Cline, fell to his death while climbing the Royal Arches route in Yosemite Valley. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he was on personal time, climbing a popular granite wall when he fell to his death and was found by search-and-rescue teams the next day.

Just over two weeks later, another tragedy struck. Harris Levinson, a 61-year-old high school teacher from Connecticut, slipped while navigating a detour on the John Muir Trail. He fell nearly 100 feet and died alone in the wilderness. Inyo County Search and Rescue later confirmed that he had deviated onto a technical route near Mount Whitney, likely without realizing the risk until it was too late.

These cases aren’t rare. Yosemite has seen over 1,300 recorded deaths since becoming a national park. Falls account for a large share. Between 2007 and 2023, over 50 people died from falls alone, according to Rands Injury Law, which has tracked incidents based on National Park Service data. Some were experienced climbers, others were visitors hiking known trails. What ties them together is the speed with which a trip can turn deadly.

Even legendary climbers have died here. In May 2015, Dean Potter and Graham Hunt died during a wingsuit BASE jump off Taft Point. Both were well-known in the climbing world, and both crashed into the rocks below when their jump didn’t go as planned. Their deaths sparked widespread debate about the risks involved in extreme sports inside national parks.

In an earlier case, British climber Derek Hersey died in 1993 while free-soloing the Steck-Salathé route on Sentinel Rock. Moisture on the rock was cited as a likely cause of the fall.

What Untamed gets right is the environment. People go missing in Yosemite. Rescues take hours, sometimes days. Trails look safe until they aren’t. In the series, Eric Bana’s character finds small details like a piece of jewelry, a bit of foliage, that lead him to answers. That part’s fictional. In real cases, like Levinson’s or Cline’s, it’s often luck that leads to recovery. Several people are never found at all.

When you see sweeping shots of Yosemite on screen, it’s easy to forget the numbers behind the scenery. The real inspiration for Untamed might have been the pattern. Remote cliffs. Risky climbs. Lives lost because help came too late or the terrain changed too fast. The show seems to build a story from that reality. And the reality, backed by a long list of deaths, is what sticks long after the credits roll.

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