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Not to "umm actually" your excellent story, but rock climbing is not that dangerous. It's about as dangerous as driving, which people do all the time without ev

Not to "umm actually" your excellent story, but rock climbing is not that dangerous. It's about as dangerous as driving, which people do all the time without even thinking about it. Mountaineering is where the danger is there, primarily.

saiya-jin 9y ago
I guess it depends how much you push things and yourself, if it's bouldering, sport climbing or trad (lets skip free soloing for this one :)) I don't have micromort stats around, but for example sport climbing, when not pushing constantly your limits and on bolted route that has not-very-old and reasonably placed protection, it feels as dangerous as some trail run in the forest. Risk of rock falling suddenly is next to 0, same goes for equipment failure. bouldering & trad are different for obvious reasons, but again depends.
CyberDroiDz 9y ago
One accidental sweat slip on a 60 foot climbing wall can paralyze you for life. Trust in your line, I guess.
- bartread 9y ago
  I have a friend who was a recreational climber. One day she's at the climbing wall with her boyfriend. She's climbing, he's on the ground holding her line. For those who don't climb, and I don't (although I've been on a climbing wall), the idea is that if you fall the other person is holding on to the rope and and managing the slack so that you don't fall any distance and can be gently lowered or grab back onto the wall. Her boyfriend wasn't paying attention; he was chatting to some friends of his and hadn't noticed how much slack there was in the line. She's quite high up the wall, loses grip, falls, and doesn't stop until she hits the ground because there's so much slack. She's paralysed from the waist down, in a wheelchair for life. The boyfriend is, well, not her boyfriend any more. She's made the best of the situation, has a good career, and has met someone else she's now engaged to, but she's still angry about it, and I can't say I blame her.
dahart 9y ago
> rock climbing is not that dangerous. It's about as dangerous as driving Expert mountain climbers: Annual mortality risk of 1 in 167. Skydiving - Annual mortality risk of 1 in 1,580. Recreational climbing - Annual mortality risk of 1 in 1,750. Driving in the U.S. - Annual mortality risk of 1 in 6,700. So, mountaineering is indeed 10x more dangerous than rock climbing, but rock climbing is still 4x more dangerous than driving, which is enough that I'd personally hesitate to equate them. Source: http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/ http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/ P.S. I hate sharing this because the infographic at the top is wrong on skydiving. (The picture at the top uses annual mortality rate for all other sports, but compares skydiving's risk per jump, so it's invalid to compare them together, but a lot of people aren't looking at the fine print. A single jump is a 1 in 100,000 change of dying, but skydiving lost an annual average of 1 per 1580 participants over the last 5 years. http://test.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety http://test.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety)

saiya-jin 9y ago

I guess it depends how much you push things and yourself, if it's bouldering, sport climbing or trad (lets skip free soloing for this one :)) I don't have micromort stats around, but for example sport climbing, when not pushing constantly your limits and on bolted route that has not-very-old and reasonably placed protection, it feels as dangerous as some trail run in the forest. Risk of rock falling suddenly is next to 0, same goes for equipment failure. bouldering & trad are different for obvious reasons, but again depends.

CyberDroiDz 9y ago

One accidental sweat slip on a 60 foot climbing wall can paralyze you for life. Trust in your line, I guess.

bartread 9y ago
I have a friend who was a recreational climber. One day she's at the climbing wall with her boyfriend. She's climbing, he's on the ground holding her line. For those who don't climb, and I don't (although I've been on a climbing wall), the idea is that if you fall the other person is holding on to the rope and and managing the slack so that you don't fall any distance and can be gently lowered or grab back onto the wall. Her boyfriend wasn't paying attention; he was chatting to some friends of his and hadn't noticed how much slack there was in the line. She's quite high up the wall, loses grip, falls, and doesn't stop until she hits the ground because there's so much slack. She's paralysed from the waist down, in a wheelchair for life. The boyfriend is, well, not her boyfriend any more. She's made the best of the situation, has a good career, and has met someone else she's now engaged to, but she's still angry about it, and I can't say I blame her.

dahart 9y ago

> rock climbing is not that dangerous. It's about as dangerous as driving Expert mountain climbers: Annual mortality risk of 1 in 167. Skydiving - Annual mortality risk of 1 in 1,580. Recreational climbing - Annual mortality risk of 1 in 1,750. Driving in the U.S. - Annual mortality risk of 1 in 6,700. So, mountaineering is indeed 10x more dangerous than rock climbing, but rock climbing is still 4x more dangerous than driving, which is enough that I'd personally hesitate to equate them. Source: http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/ http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/ P.S. I hate sharing this because the infographic at the top is wrong on skydiving. (The picture at the top uses annual mortality rate for all other sports, but compares skydiving's risk per jump, so it's invalid to compare them together, but a lot of people aren't looking at the fine print. A single jump is a 1 in 100,000 change of dying, but skydiving lost an annual average of 1 per 1580 participants over the last 5 years. http://test.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety http://test.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety)