How Safe is Climbing?
How safe is climbing? According to a recent study published in the Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, climbing is relatively safe, especially when compared with other outdoor pursuits like snowboarding, sledding, and skiing. The study, which does have limitations including incomplete data on the numbers of participants in outdoor sports and the non-inclusion of hospitals in several western states, analyzed 212,708 people who were treated for injuries sustained in outdoor activities in American emergency departments during 2004 and 2005.
The study found that 72.1 injuries occurred among every 100,000 Americans, with 68.2% of injuries to males and 31.8% to females. Not surprisingly, the most dangerous outdoor sport is snowboarding, with 25.5% of all injuries, and most of those to young men. The next two most dangerous outdoor activities are sledding with 10.8% of injuries and hiking with 6.3%. Climbing, including both rock and mountain climbing, accounted for 4.9% of outdoor injuries. Of course, since the total number of participants in climbing is unknown, the relation of climbing injuries to total climbers can’t be accurately made.
So how safe is climbing? Based on this study, it’s pretty safe. To supplement the study, however, I looked over the annual book Accidents in North American Mountaineering published by the American Alpine Club. It finds that while there is some fluctuation in the number of fatalities every year, the number of climbing accidents seems to be fairly steady, despite the dramatic growth of participants in climbing and mountaineering. This could be attributed to a number of factors. For instance, more people sport climb rather than climb in the traditional manner, which tends to be more dangerous since more serious injuries occur when gear pulls out during a fall rather than when a climber falls onto a bolt. Another example is that more climbers are now using 60-meter (200-foot) ropes rather than 50-meter (165-foot) ones so less climbers are dropped to the ground by inattentive belayers, who let the loose end of the rope slip through a belay device while lowering.
Buy the book Accidents in North American Mountaineering and learn more about climbing and mountaineering accidents and how to prevent them.
Photo above: Is climbing really that dangerous?.
Photograph © Stewart M. Green
Comments
Interesting perspectives; particularly the stable numbers considering the increase of mountaineers…
I have always thought that out of all climbing styles, that scrambling seems to be the most dangerous. It is seems to be that nexus between climbers with a certain developed skillset, and the nature of the routes that scramblers get out on.
DSD
I agree with you. Scramblers get into a lot of accidents. When I look through Accidents in NA Mountaineering, so many accidents and fatalities are on easy mountain routes where they get off route, hit by rockfall, fall unroped on easy terrain. Just a week ago in Colorado a woman was killed on the scrambling route on Crestone Needle when she lost her balance and tumbled 100+ feet.
How does perusing a single year of ANAM allow you to conclude that climbing on gear is more dangerous than climbing on bolts or that fewer climbers are being dropped off then end of 60m ropes than were previously dropped off 50m ropes? I see nothing to back up this conjecture.
I looked through all the ANAM since 1994. The AAC’s analysis of climbing/mountain accidents indicates that trad climbing is more dangerous than sport climbing. Part of the reason, of course, is that there is more potential for bad gear placements, either from inexperience or just bad gear, that will pull in a fall. Many accidents at trad areas like Yosemite Valley, JTree, and City of Rocks tend to be ones where not enough pro was placed or the pro placed was inadequate. Fewer severe accidents are reported from sport areas and those that occur are from lowering mishaps and lower extremity injuries from falls. Brad Shilling, climbing ranger at City of Rocks, feels the use of longer ropes by more climbers has led to less lowering accidents at the City. As you say though, there is no complete data or any study to back any of this up!