L’appel du vide, Glacier National Park, Montana, 1994

(Click image to enlarge)

The image shows Glacier National Park's Haystack Butte in late evening light from a high vantage point. The flat foreground rock would make a perfect posing platform, or diving board, depending on one's mindset.

When people stand on a rock like this one, about half of them have a momentary urge to jump. Really. The name for this surprisingly common momentary urge was first coined in French as L’appel du vide. Literally translated it means the call of the void. Today psychologists call this urge "High Place Phenomena" or HPP. For most, but not all, it is a fleeting thought that is completely ignored and one that they would never execute. You can read more about HPP here.

I have experienced HPP a few times, but I did not stand on the rock in this photograph. If I did my chance of dying of stupidity would be much greater than my chances of jumping. The rocks could give way or an inadvertent stumble could prove deadly. Quite a few people die in America's parks every year doing things like that, constantly proving Darwin's theories.