 Poster: A snowHead
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edited - as i was just saying what others had - must learn to read the thread!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| midgetbiker wrote: |
Does anyone know definitively what the fatality stats are? I've heard (since this incident kicked off some public debate):
50-60 around Mont Blanc (from the article above)
100 a year in the Chamonix area (press article)
100 alpine deaths a year (BBC radio)
these 3 sets of figures could all be true if some are only talking climbing deaths (not skiing), some don't include say deaths on the Italian side of MB, some include all fatalities in any sport (climbing/paragliding/base jumping/skiing).
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or they could just be nonsense taken from Wikipedia
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I think it's quite clear that climbing most mountains is more dangerous than driving to the Alps, no matter what the stats say. More people die on the roads 'cos there are lots of idiotic drivers on the roads (otherwise they'd be a pretty safe place). I think (or would like to anyway) that most people climbing in dangerous terrain are fairly skilled and make sensible decisions, hence why fatalities are relatively rare.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I think what clarky999 is saying is that alpinism is inherently dangerous so that even skilled, careful, experienced participants are at risk. Whereas driving should be inherently quite safe were it not for the idiots driving like k**bs and killing themselves. unfortunately the arguement breaks down because those very idiots are a danger to others and so become themselves an objective risk to other road users, meaning that even skilled, careful, experienced road users are at risk.
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pam w, so if there are 300 deaths in Austria then the '100 for the Alps' figure sounds way out. I'm tempted to believe the 100 deaths a year around Chamonix as it chimes with my established belief of what was happening, and ties up with your earlier assertion of 1-2 a week. I think if it were 100 the bulk would be climbers, next up the skiers (obviously a fair cross over in those two groups), then other activities also.
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pam w, you are right the figure in the Austrian Alps ranges from about 200 to 375. But that includes a whole range of things including heart attacks and suicide. It is tricky to compare like with like without knowing what is being counted. Some figures include road accidents too (though not the 200-375).
If you look at this:
http://www.alpinesicherheit.at/index.php?menuid=2034
You can get an annual breakdown by activity by looking through each year. The one about the couple caught out by stampeding cows whilst mushrooming is a salutary tale (they survived).
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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nozawaonsen, I got chased by a group of frisky young cattle once - it was quite scary, I ducked under an electric fence into some thick woods. I realised I had no idea what I should do - probably I should have stood my ground, but instinct took over. I had no dog with me, so it wasn't that which spooked them.
The guy who jumped off a lift because he saw his friend was a trifle daft!
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Careful on snowheads, "facts" are twisted to suit people's opinions. Many regular posters believe that you can outsmart the mountain. To say you are as likely to be killed or seriously injured driving to the moutain as when climbing or skiing it is either ignorance or fabrication. There is always a risk. It may be small but it is certainly orders of magnitude higher than driving your car.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
Many regular posters believe that you can outsmart the mountain
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 i see no evidence to support that suggestion! There are some very experienced mountaineers and ski-tourers on SHs and I respect their experience and greatly enjoy their trip reports. I don't remember seeing any cocky "outsmart the mountain" comments. Personally I am a very cautious hill walker - no kind of mountaineer - who had the fundamentals of navigation and safety (and a big respect for mountain rescue teams) drummed into me as a teenager by my Dad, an ex-Commando who had trained extensively in the Highlands and loved the hills.
I am also fascinated by the perception of risk - this is an interesting discussion.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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pam w, the danger of driving to the mountain vs skiing the mountain has been the subject of previous discussion, with believe it or not quite a few posters contending the drive is more dangerous than a week off -piste. Obviously a notion to be knocked on the head
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| OwenM wrote: |
| pam w wrote: |
Mountains kills people - not just big ones; quite a lot of people die every year in the Cairngorms (mountaineering is, I believe, one of the more dangerous sports in terms of fatalities). Some victims are foolish and/or ill-equipped, others are not.
t. |
Just to give some prospective there's an average of something like a few hundred climbing deaths per year but the number of climbers visiting the alps is in the hundreds of thousands every summer. This accident is very sad but it is such a big story because is so out of the ordinary. You're at far greater risk driving to and from the alps than you are climbing there. |
Here is an example from this very thread!
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You know it makes sense.
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| midgetbiker wrote: |
| pam w, so if there are 300 deaths in Austria then the '100 for the Alps' figure sounds way out. I'm tempted to believe the 100 deaths a year around Chamonix as it chimes with my established belief of what was happening, and ties up with your earlier assertion of 1-2 a week. I think if it were 100 the bulk would be climbers, next up the skiers (obviously a fair cross over in those two groups), then other activities also. |
Before you run too far with this, around 25 to 30 deaths per year in the Mont Blanc massive covering French, Italian and Swiss sides. That wouldn't be too far off from the 1-2 / week mentioned above but the season is pretty much June to early September.
About 150 deaths in the mountains on a sporting activities in France for all mountain ranges, similar figure for Switzerland. Around a third are people having heart attacks on footpaths. Climbing/Alpinism forms around 20% of the sports activities.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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davidof, thanks for what seem to be some hard facts. I'm confused by the mention of the season, does this mean the figure quoted is only for deaths in that period, or is it mentioned in some other context.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
About 150 deaths in the mountains on a sporting activities in France for all mountain ranges, similar figure for Switzerland. Around a third are people having heart attacks on footpaths. Climbing/Alpinism forms around 20% of the sports activities.
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Mountain sports are much less prevalent in the UK, obviously, but deaths in the Cairngorms, Snowdonia etc, are still not trivial numbers.
I think one thing which distorts our view is that if a British climber is killed on Mont Blanc, or a British skier killed in an avalanche, it will generally hit national news here. But it takes a truly ghastly road accident to do so. Maybe we are inclined to play down the familiar risks we live with all the time - and become more impressed with the exotic, especially in environments we don't understand. That's why so many people are scared of flying, despite the undeniable statistical evidence that it's a safer way of getting somewhere than driving. News this morning suggests that the majority of the British population are running greater risks through inactivity than a fit and well-prepared individual is running when they take part in mountain activities. Inactivity looks like being a much bigger killer than using the roads.
Average 3 deaths a week in the French mountains? More in the summer..... suggests that the sad events of last week weren't that unusual.
How many overall "sporting deaths" in France, leaving out the heart attacks? Unless it's around 500 a year then maybe mountaineering is more dangerous than other sports.
Quite a few cycling/marathon running deaths are probably heart attacks, too.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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FYI: 135 people have drowned since the 1st June in France.
12 cyclists a year die riding up Mt Ventoux (largely from heart attacks).
For mountain accidents the Swiss Alpine Club (CAS) publishes an annual report which you can find on the web. For France the ENSA (SNOSM) does the same but they have not published anything since around 2007 due to budget cuts and little appears online. So the figures I gave date a bit and with activities like base jump, wing suit etc as well as more extreme MTBing tend to evolve.
One thing, which some of the Swiss newspaper reports have talked about this week, is that non-French (or Swiss) climbers represent a high and growing percentage of climbing/alpinism fatalities compared to other sports.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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patricksh, if you want to knock it on the head you're going to need to do more than just make assertions.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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In the headlines today 1901 killed on the roads last year - you don't need to climb a mountain. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Megamum, you'd need to do a per capita per time/distance comparison to be accurate. A lot more people drive than mountaineer and probably spend a lot longer behind the wheel per year than they do in the mountains.
Doing anything at all stands a chance of getting you killed and even if you try to avoid all seemingly risky activities your own body can give out.
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For example here using data from the US and about as a good a normalisation method for comparison as you can reliably get without more data:
http://www.summitpost.org/mountaineering-accident-statistics/658474
You're more than 10 times more likely to die in a car accident than mountaineering, 182 times more like to be injured in a car accident and 313 times more likely to be involved in a car accident. If anything this overestimates the risk of mountaineering as the normalisation method basically assumes people spend as long climbing as they do in the car which in the UK is likely to be very wrong let alone in somewhere as car dependent as the US.
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| Quote: |
One thing, which some of the Swiss newspaper reports have talked about this week, is that non-French (or Swiss) climbers represent a high and growing percentage of climbing/alpinism fatalities compared to other sports.
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Makes sense. I can't imagine many people go to Switzerland for the sailing, or even the tennis! And people from far off lands are perhaps less likely to be as familiar with the conditions and the risks.
Generally, we are more scared of the unfamiliar (even if statistics tell us this is nonsense). I'm scared of horses, but horsey people might be scared of capsizing a sailing dinghy. People going to live in Africa are usually worried about snake bites, and malaria, but provided they do as they're told about prophylaxis are a lot more likely to die in an RTA.
Our attitude to safety precautions can be a bit irrational, too. Some people would ALWAYS wear a lifejacket when cruising (ie in a yacht), others (including me) are happy without in certain conditions. Sure, the lifejacket reduces risk in ALL conditions but then wearing a crash helmet would reduce risk when driving to Tesco and few people choose to do that. And perhaps the oddest calculation of all - parents cycling round without helmets, with a baby on the back, or kids on their little bikes, suitably helmeted.
Some of the papers have carried stories about the "overcrowding" on MB. Does this contribute to lack of safety? (people unwilling to give up their booked ascent, having to wait around for others at bottlenecks, etc etc)
There are so many other beautiful places to climb - and much of the Alps is completely deserted.
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| Quote: |
| Technically, this technique assumes that the typical climber spends about as many hours driving as climbing, which is probably reasonable |
I am scratching my head at this "normalisation" method, as described in the article, but I'm not convinced; someone with more knowledge of statistics might have a go at convincing me it's OK, or agreeing that it's not!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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pam w, the relative sizes of the "Americans who climb" is being adjusted to a rough fit with the number of "Americans who ride in cars" so you can compare the accident statistics which are not per capita. In this instance making the accident statistics for the "Americans who climb" larger by a factor of 150 as nearly the entire populations will ride around in cars.
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| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
I think it's quite clear that climbing most mountains is more dangerous than driving to the Alps, no matter what the stats say
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clarky999, is that what you mean? The rest of the post seems to suggest the converse. |
I guess I didn't really put it very clearly. I mean that climbing/touring/skiing/etc in the high alpine (NOT the fairly controlled/signposted terrain 'in resort') inherently involves more risk than driving, but the majority of the people in that sort of mountain terrain have the skills and knowledge to manage the risks, hence the relatively low number of deaths compared to number of participants. If there were a similar number of incompetent/dangerous climbers as there are drivers, I would expect many more deaths in the mountains, which is why I think it's a bit of a fallacy when people claim that the drive to the Alps is more dangerous than climbing them. For the average guy with no mountain experience, climbing would for sure be more dangerous than the drive.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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clarky999, that's basically the idea of conditional risk. For example you'll never die on Mont Blanc if you never go anywhere near it.
Mind you we're not comparing the average guy with no mountain experience driving versus climbing, that would be silly and a bit like saying lets compare a guy who never travels by car but is an expert climber with his risk of dying in a car accident versus climbing. We're comparing the population that engages in mountaineering with the population that travels by car and there the statistical comparison isn't fallacious.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| davidof wrote: |
Before you run too far with this, around 25 to 30 deaths per year in the Mont Blanc massive covering French, Italian and Swiss sides. That wouldn't be too far off from the 1-2 / week mentioned above but the season is pretty much June to early September.
About 150 deaths in the mountains on a sporting activities in France for all mountain ranges, similar figure for Switzerland. Around a third are people having heart attacks on footpaths. Climbing/Alpinism forms around 20% of the sports activities. |
This is what I'd have guesses approximately. One large event or even a bad week does not suddenly make something riskier. 150 deaths annually in French mountains sounds high but with heart attacks, cycling, watersports, parapenting, speedflying, base jumping added to climbing and wintersports it's probably not bad. I think I read somewhere that big ski resorts can average up to around 1 death a week in ski season, mainly agains from some form of natural cause.
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meh, come on, don't believe everything on the internet is gospel. This is an illustration of bended truth I referred to earlier that pam w wasn't sure about.
I read your link.
There is now way that there are 2 MILLION Americans who spend the same amount of time mountaineering as driving. Most Americans spend 1 to 2 hours per day 365 / year in the car, and most mountaineers are recreational spending only a handful of days doing it. Where did figure of 2 million even come from? The conclusions of this piece are completely flawed based as they are on such flawed assumptions
The interesting point in my mind is that a mountaineering accident is 31 times more likely to be fatal. And I would guess that most drivers have never had an accident, and most mountaineers have (although latter is based on opinion)
You don't need to take swipe at me for making "assertions".
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You know it makes sense.
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| patricksh wrote: |
| And I would guess that most drivers have never had an accident, and most mountaineers have (although latter is based on opinion) |
SRSLY?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Whilst it might not give you the precise answer you're after; the following article from the ANENA website is worth a read (regarding summer avalanches on Mt Blanc du Tacul, etc).
http://www.anena.org/quels_risques/avalanche_ete/exemple_tacul_voie_normale.html
This winter season (source: ANENA) there were 13 avalanche deaths in France.
There is always a risk in mountaineering (or indeed many other activities inc skiing) and it's up to the individual concerned to "choose" what level of risk they are prepared to accept. Clearly you do the maximum to reduce the risk by choosing amongst other things: when you go; who you go with; what equipment you take, your experience, etc. however alpine climbing is always going to carry a certain level of risk.
As someone has already said crossing the road or driving in France is probably a higher risk activity!
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Poster: A snowHead
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patricksh, You think most mountaineers have experienced an accident worthy of reporting? Wow. I really guess I should know more then!
BTW if you'd read my post you'll see I've raised the same point with regards the time spent mountaineering to driving. So I'm quite obviously not taking something on the Internet as gospel.
The point about assertions wasn't a dig, it was all you had done when I posted and you've managed very little since.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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One of the guides, Daniel rossetto, who was injured in the avalanche, took me up mont blanc last year, he's a top bloke is always smling and laughing and at 63 has over 200 accents of mont blanc. I wish him a speedy recovery.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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marksavoie,
ANENA is a good source.
None of the country stats are collected on a comparable basis, and most not consistently over time. I do a lot of work with large social science databases, so I don't fret if there's not a single definitive statistic for something like 'deaths in the Alps' since you can get a idea of the proportion of deaths despite the differences. I figure that the stat we should be interested in is how many people are injured or killed because of Alpine risk exposure. I would exclude those with deaths linked to pre-existing conditions (eg stroke, heart attack) since this could occur if they ran up six flights of stairs. I would exclude alpine RTAs. It might seem sensible to include hiking, since even if you try to include an altitude criterion to get at objective risk, there are objective dangers low down (crags, rivers etc). In skiing stats, you usually include those who are skiing. That's sensible. So with climbing, you should look at the people who go climbing. And you should use this as the base to calculate the proportion of people who are injured or die climbing. Then you get an idea of the risk. So does anyone do this? Not that I can find. The number of people going to the Alps to climb has gone up vastly, as have the numbers going up the 4000m peaks.
Pistehors 100 die in summer across Alps
http://pistehors.com/news/forums/viewthread/167/#505
I had a source for 1957 but can't put my hands on it - I recall 197 per annum throughout the swiss, french and italian Alps.
With the total numbers now - (from good source CIPRA)
To a question of such importance, we can answer only by induction. In fact, the figures supplied by UNWTO (2006) merely concern the international arrivals of each country; yet, on average, more national than international tourists visit the Alps. In addition, the Alps are not surveyed as a unitary region and the integration of data of the different countries leads to several problems. Anyway, based on the analysis of various national, regional and municipal sources (see data on overnight stays in the Alps), the international arrivals in the Alps may add up to about 30 millions, or a little less than 4% of world’s total number (806,8 million in 2005) and almost 7% of the European ones. This share of tourist arrivals is nearly as high as in Italy as a whole: 4,5% and 8,3%, respectively). Yet, if the Alpine tourist destinations in those respective countries are grouped, the Alps rank virtually as the second largest tourist destination in the world after the Mediterranean coast (though this region records about four times as much visitors as the Alpine region).
I have no time tonight to evaluate the data, but I'd say that while the number of deaths has gone up significantly. so has the numbers accessing the higher parts of the range, so the proportion of deaths has gone down. But I need to spend an evening on it at least to quantify this with reasonable precision.
Personally, I'd steer clear of toilets. Ask my 6 year old how he broke his arm when he was three - he says with a cheeky grin....'fell off the toilet...': see......
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343074/75-lightning-strikes-24-rat-bites-people-falling-TOILET-The-bizarre-injuries-seen-A-E-departments-year.html
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
Most Americans spend 1 to 2 hours per day 365 / year in the car, and most mountaineers are recreational spending only a handful of days doing it.
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Not sure where you're getting these numbers from. The average commute in the US is 25 mins. So 50mins would be average. And that varies greatly by region etc, etc. And that's certainly not 365 days/yr. Granted we certainly drive more here, but I don't know anyone in their car for 2hrs/day for 365 days.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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