And given that, those deaths weren’t “accidents.” It’s a feature, not a bug. They were playing Russian roulette until they lost.
Obviously there’s a middle ground but nobody says that giving up the thing that you love because you have kids is negligence.
Telling people to think more about having kids is a clear waste of breath. Whatever amount they think about it they’ll (almost always) rationalize that as the correct amount.
> In 2002, at age 31, she'd gotten her degree to teach music around the time that Bill announced to the family that he was going to try to climb Huascarán.
It’s massively more risky than commercial flight travel and seems to serve no practical utility.
It’s like driving: it’s usually very safe if you don’t speed and drive tired or drunk.
Miscalculating range in a ground vehicle typically has the somewhat less than fatal outcome of being at least somewhat embarrassing.
Misjudging driving ability is largely a characteristic attributed to male drivers under the age of 25, and the overwhelming majority of incidents are more costly and ego injuring than fatal.
Last time I checked, the average driver can expect to be involved in a fatal car accident every 200 million kilometres or so (Australian data).
While general aviation appears to have a fatality rate of around 10 per million flight hours.
Average speed in a car is typically well under 100 kilometres per hour, making general aviation fatality rate 10 to 20 times higher.
Having said that, the law of small numbers informs that the average general aviation pilot can expect to be involved in a fatal incident approximately never.
However people who fly regularly tend to have crazy high total mileage compared to the ~15k miles/year of a typical American. Which is why so many general aviation pilots die relative to car crashes, it’s just inherently a very dangerous hobby.
One example of an “easy” but high risk climb is Mt. Rainier in Washington. All you need to go up is a set of crampons and a backpack, no technical mountaineering needed. However the mountain is full of glaciers that can collapse from under you, which has killed many people. Additionally, many have slipped and then slid to their death. In my case, when I attempted Rainier I took a wrong turn at one point and almost walked off a cliff.
Second: Objective Hazard. Objective hazard is risks that cannot be reasonably mitigated. Things like rockfall where a rock breaks off and falls on your head at random, or unpredictable avalanches. Mt Rainier as well has an area called the bowling alley known for its rockfall. The humans are the pins. Rainier also has an area called the icebox where cornices break off and fall into the climbing route. In 1981 the icebox killed 11 people in one day. Those climbers did everything right, but were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mountaineering is not the same as other sports. It is sometimes deceptively easy, yet there are risks that simply cannot be mitigated. Any experienced mountaineer can give you a long list of friends they know that have died. That’s the case in few other sports.
In mountaineering, if something goes wrong, you could die.
In base jumping, if you don't do everything correctly, you will die.
A bit like the difference of a car engine failing (it will roll to a stop) vs an airplane engine failing (you will come down hard on the ground)
Or that almost suicidal thing with the wingsuits some people do: I get the appeal, I'm sure the rush of feeling like flying must be incredible, but they are playing Russian roulette.
It might have been true for the pioneers of the sport though.
It's more dangerous than jumping from a plane with a wingsuit.
I read the fatality comment somewhere presumably somewhat authoritative but it was a while back.
hehe a friend wants to do it. He has a trainer. The condition was at least 5000 jumps from plane with parachute . then 3 years training with at least 1000 or more jumps from plane or so….. it was hard and demanding be asured. he is elite lvl in sport. i wouldn’t do it. not because of the danger but because the training to do it safe is to hard.
Those risks can be mitigated. They can't be reduced to zero, but they can be made less severe.
Avalanches don't typically happen randomly out of the blue any more than thunderstorms do in the midwest. In the midwest, you know days ahead of time that there is going to be a risk of thunderstorms the same way that you know days ahead of time when there is going to be a high avalanche risk. You know the amount of recent snowfall, you know what the weather is going to be, and you know how to recognize avalanche terrain.
Rockfall does not occur completely randomly. If you go to a place overlooking something like the bowling alley on a warm summer afternoon, you will see and hear rocks the size of cars or small houses bouncing down the slopes. If you go on a cold winter morning before the sun hits the snow, you won't see or hear that because everything that is frozen in place will stay frozen in place. You choose the time of your climb to mitigate risks from rockfall, avalanches, and weather. Mitigate does not mean reduce to zero.
Yes, mountaineering can be risky. Everyone decides their own level of involvement. Climbing a walkup in bluebird weather has less risk than driving to the grocery store. Attempting to climb K2 kills 25% of the people who do it. Mountaineer's choice. If you've got kids and you try to climb K2, you're selfish and I feel sorry for your kids. If you're a single guy who wants to risk death, go for it.
It has a historic fatality ratio of 1 death for every 4 summits. If you have 100 people try to climb it in a season, 4 summits and 1 death you have 25% summit to death ratio, but 99 out of the 100 people survived.
Last year it looks like it had 175 climbers, ~50 summits, and 2 deaths. 2023 had over 100 summits and 1 death.
On the other hand, you get into the bigger mountains and it’s a lot harder. To time the weather and other dangers.
Before I moved to flatland, I used to go on snowshoe hikes. I didn't have a beacon. Didn't have a phone with me.
I risked getting into real trouble, if you get hurt there's no one around to rescue you. There's good parts about it too. It was a tradeoff. On those hikes, I got to be as far away as possible from people like you.
the mt Everest hast like 300 deaths on 15.000 successful climbs or so. And thats not an easy one and ridiculous elite.
I know guids in the alps and they do 300 alpinist tour day a year. So how come allmost all are alive and their friends etc. For sure they know people that know poeple or colleges that died by accidents , mostly avalanches and loose rocks, but as said rly rly rare.
but on the other hand there are many deaths in the alps every year.
The guy in the post seemed well prepared and smart and shit happens and I am sorry for the lost. Very glad his family got an answer.
I suppose on a basis of deaths per vertical meter travelled, ascending slopes is probably safer than even air travel.
No, by orders of magnitude.
In my personal experience, that does not seem true. I have a number of friends who have been seriously injured climbing, e.g. from large rocks falling from above, presumably loosened by water freezing and expanding over the winter.
I don't know anyone who's gotten into an accident on their trip to or from climbing. Car accidents are already pretty rare overall, and driving to/from climbing is a teensy fraction of your overall driving.
Mountains are inherently dangerous, unpredictable places in ways that roads usually aren't.
Mountains are peaceful places without the majority of people around them required to keep perfectly attentive to their surroundings so they don't kill you. If you're in the mountains, your likelihood of experiencing dangerous situations depends on the environment, your skill and fitness, the weather, and maybe others on the mountain.
Roads are the most dangerous places most people will ever find themselves, much more often, regardless of whether they take on the responsibility of driving. If you're on the mountains, your death is caused by being severely ill-prepared or stupid, or significant misfortune just because. If you're around a road you're constantly surrounded by people armed with killing machines that nobody seems to have reverence for. You're in a life or death situation by default in any time you're not parked or stuck in traffic. All you or someone else needs to do is get distracted for a moment or fall asleep or whatever. Maybe they just decided that was their time to go and drive through a crowd of people.
In the mountains you could be in a very vulnerable spot, or you could effectively be camping, or just out for a trail run. Yes, bad things could happen, but there are all sorts of variables that matter to affect that. I've taken some spills, they happen, sometimes they've been scary, but I opted into that risk.
Both places are dangerous, only one is nearly always dangerous. While it may not literally be the drive to the climb that takes you out, I think the point is that being a car commuter or around roads regularly does pose a greater degree of risk.
But that's arguing from emotion. The only thing that actually matters is statistics.
And statistically, it seems like people get injured far more often when climbing on mountains than when on the road to climbing.
It doesn't matter if you might die on roads because you "get distracted for a moment", because that's actually a very rare occurrence. It doesn't matter that when you get injured on a mountain, you "opted into that risk", because you opt into driving too.
The point is just where are you more likely to get injured. And roads seem to be the safer place if you're talking about hours spent.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6843304/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
High altitude mountaineering is considered an elite endeavor. Most mountaineering is not at high altitude.
„ For France, Soulé et al. reported approximately 25 fatalities per year, calculated for a 4 year period, with a slight predominance of traumatic (approximately 45%) versus non-traumatic accidents (approximately 35%) and nearly 20% disappearances „
The Mont blanc is in france and one of the most climbed mountains in the world.
I think this „ many people die while mountaineering“ is bragging or watching to much social media
problem that death numbers are so high is because of social media idiots doing it for the fame and not beeing prepared while beeing 100% douches.
And mountaineering. Its amazing. Why people do it? I do it because i feel so little there and the world so big. In the mountains your mind gets activated because you are not anymore the king of the city but a little animal in big nature. beeing on a summit is something that the human mind cant grasp. its feeling endless beauty. Your friends are so close to you and you did something amazing together and your body and minds knows it. its like fucking. there is a nature to its greatness. Also all the technical stuff and planning is awesome and i love every moment of it. So i hope you understand there is something about it.
If you could have the same solitude, sweeping views, natural beauty, cameraderie, etc., but without real danger, would it have the same appeal?
Well, yeah. Most of the gear for mountaineering and other pursuits are to try and minimize risk because we deem the gain is worth the risk but still it's worth reducing risk.
After all, that's the same reason people drive despite it being a leading cause of death.
sherdil2022•2d ago