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'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

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Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#51

Post by blackguardx »

stagger87 wrote: post #49
crazygringo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation for that? 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 cli…

Even a cursory glance of mortality rates for driving vs mountaineering show orders of magnitude higher rates for mountaineering. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6843304/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

I think this is a disagreement about the definition of "mountain climbing." From the available statistics: 0.68 per 10,000 climbers in the Alps vs 1.5 per 10,000 US vehicles on the road.

High altitude mountaineering is considered an elite endeavor. Most mountaineering is not at high altitude.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#52

Post by blackguardx »

pfdietz wrote: post #39
blackguardx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving to the mountains is often more dangerous than climbing a mountain. Things change at the elite levels, but that is true for any sport.

Climbing Mt. Everest is three times more deadly than driving -- that is, 3x the chance of dying while driving anytime in your entire life .

Climbing Everest is an elite endeavor. Most mountaineers are summiting 14ers in Colorado or doing something similar.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#53

Post by throwup238 »

nandomrumber wrote: post #47
voidfunc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some folks are adrenaline junkies. Doing this stuff when you have kids though is negligence and even worse doing it when the kid already lost one parent to the activity. Fuck those parents and anyone here that's like them.

Would we group private pilot / recreational flying in that category? It’s massively more risky than commercial flight travel and seems to serve no practical utility.

If you break down the stats, a significant fraction (if not most) of the fatal accidents in GA are in experimental aircraft like kit builds and exotic stuff like fighter jets, despite accounting for a small fraction of the total flight hours. Most of the rest are due to preventable human error like misjudging your ability to fly in bad weather or miscalculating fuel and running out mid-flight.

It’s like driving: it’s usually very safe if you don’t speed and drive tired or drunk.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#54

Post by stagger87 »

blackguardx wrote: post #51
stagger87 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a cursory glance of mortality rates for driving vs mountaineering show orders of magnitude higher rates for mountaineering. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6843304/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

I think this is a disagreement about the definition of "mountain climbing." From the available statistics: 0.68 per 10,000 climbers in the Alps vs 1.5 per 10,000 US vehicles on the road. High altitude mountaineering is considered an elite endeavor. Most mountaineering is not at high altitude.

That's fair. If you use any of the numbers closer to the activity described in the article (mountaineering at 22k') then you see the disparity. Even non elite mountaineering (mt ranier at 14k') has twice the mortality rate, according to this data.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#55

Post by nandomrumber »

throwup238 wrote: post #53
nandomrumber wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we group private pilot / recreational flying in that category? It’s massively more risky than commercial flight travel and seems to serve no practical utility.

If you break down the stats, a significant fraction (if not most) of the fatal accidents in GA are in experimental aircraft like kit builds and exotic stuff like fighter jets, despite accounting for a small fraction of the total flight hours. Most of the rest are due to preventable human error like misjudging your ability to fly in bad weather or miscalculating fuel and running out mid-flight. It’s like driving: it’s…

With the distinct difference that driving isn’t at all like flying for very obvious reasons.

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.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#56

Post by paulcole »

OrsonSmelles wrote: post #37
paulcole wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing this stuff when you have kids though is negligence Obviously there’s a middle ground but nobody says that giving up the thing that you love because you have kids is negligence.

I think having a commitment that strong to a dangerous activity should factor into whether you have kids in the first place. Maybe it doesn't make the answer an automatic "no", but I think one has to really think through one's decision to create a person who will have a disproportionate risk of major trauma in their early life and should have an extremely clear contingency plan for the child's care by someone who is…

Everybody’s life sucks in some way. Some kids have parents who die rock climbing. Some kids have parents who hate their lives. You can’t prevent trauma in a kid’s life.

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.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#57

Post by terribleperson »

bombcar wrote: post #48
ghaff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gone out of course.

Same thing exists for GA pilots - they often KNOW they shouldn’t fly into weather, and do so anyway, and then - it’s over!

The wonderful thing about aviation is how all this stuff has names. This one's get-there-itis or plan continuation bias.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#58

Post by Retric »

nandomrumber wrote: post #55
throwup238 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you break down the stats, a significant fraction (if not most) of the fatal accidents in GA are in experimental aircraft like kit builds and exotic stuff like fighter jets, despite accounting for a small fraction of the total flight hours. Most of the rest are due to preventable human error like misjudging your ability to fly in bad weather or miscalculating fuel and running out mid-flight. It’s like driving: it’s…

With the distinct difference that driving isn’t at all like flying for very obvious reasons. 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. Las…

~10x as dangerous checks per km checks out if you assume the same distance is traveled either case. (1 fatality per 100k flight hours * 200KPH would be 1 fatality per 20 million km.)

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.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#59

Post by wetmore »

ip26 wrote: post #35
jwagenet wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most mountaineering is not an adrenaline fueled pursuit and many adrenaline junkies would find it’s often non-technical tactics boring. Is it an egotistical pursuit? Sure. Objectively hazardous? Yes. But distance cyclists and runners have more in common with mountaineers than base jumpers.

There’s class 4 mountaineers, and WI6 mountaineers. It’s often hard to tell where any one person falls on that continuum.

The latter are generally called alpinists.

Re: 'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber

#60

Post by sampullman »

ghaff wrote: post #20
the_af wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think base jumping is slightly closer to suicide. 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.

Wingsuits aren’t something I really follow. But my understanding it’s an activity that most serious practitioners die sooner or later from a crash/fall.

It's very dangerous, but I think "most serious practitioners die sooner or later" is an exaggeration. The number I see is 1 death per 500 jumps, which I assume is also biased towards people with less experience.

It might have been true for the pioneers of the sport though.

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