How dangerous is outdoor rock climbing if you're smart about it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I realize that some danger is inevitable in rock climbing, but since some danger exists in everything, we should focus on the degree of danger (have you noticed, as a side note, that some people cannot do this? You say that such-and-such precaution reduces the risk of something bad significantly, and they say “you can never be certain” as though the difference in probability were irrelevant.)

Suppose that I stick to well-established rock-climbing routes (the kinds found in commonly-printed guidebooks) and take my precautions seriously. About how dangerous is rock climbing?

Edit: if this could be moved to General Questions, that would be helpful. I made a mistake in selection.

2

I’d imagine that a lot of it depends on how dangerous you feel like getting. It can probably be anything from 0 chance of large danger to “Oh my god, you’re an idiot.”

3

Here is a page with statistics evened out over, what we can presume to be, all styles of climbing:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yose/sar/climbsafe.htm

Assuming that you opt for safer climbs and safer techniques, you should end up with lower odds of accident than given there.

4

I think the BIGGER problem is how capable you are of judging your abilities.

Some folks can probably do amazingly dangerous stuff that relies on skills and abilities to keep it safe. But, if they are a really good judge of what they can and they can’t do, baring stuff basically out of their control they will be safe.

On the other hand, somebody doing really “safe” stuff, but way overestimating what they can do is just an accident waiting to happen.

Obviously, thats not the WHOLE equation, but IMO, in most things risky its a significant fraction of it.

Or in other words, you gotta know what know (or can do) and know what you don’t know (or cant do).

5

I also depends very much on the style of climbing you’re doing: top-rope, sport lead, traditional lead (trad), or ice climbing. Also, whether you are climbing single pitch routes or multiple pitch routes, and what kind of training you have for any or all of the above.

You should not be climbing outdoors without taking a course. Leading outdoors (sport or trad) you’ll especially want a course that covers everything from properly using your gear, permanent fixed gear you may expect to find on the rock face, and basic self-rescue. For top-roping, you should also take a course in how to properly (and safely) set-up top-rope anchors, rapelling, and related safety procedures.

When I first started climbing, there were two local fatalities. One was a guy who was setting up top-rope anchors without leashing himself to anything before approaching the edge. He just slipped over the edge when he was looking over to see his friends below. The other was a guy who lost control of a rappel - a prusik knot (requiring not even $1 worth of cord) would have prevented his fall. Falls due to equipment failure are rare. Most are preventable screw-ups.

General comparative risk:

Top-roping: If proper, “bomb proof” and redundant top-rope anchors are set up, the danger is pretty much identical to top-roping indoors. The dangers that differ from the gym are environmental: rock fall, sun stroke or dehydration, sudden weather changes, and angry wildlife (e.g. rattle snakes). Top-rope routes are also limited in height by the length of your rope, and few top-rope routes go higher than 40-60 feet.

Sport leading: for the most part, as dangerous as sport leading indoors, except you also need to know how to recognize deteriorated fixed gear, and how to clean your gear from the cliff-face (cleaning gear is probably the riskiest part, IMHO). In addition to the multiple day course we took, my fiancee and I have taking refresher courses prior to each major expedition to make sure we haven’t developed any bad habits. Environmental risks are the same as above.

Trad climbing: (which you can’t do indoors), is certainly not for the risk-averse, as it has the most potential for both human error and bad luck. I have been rock climbing, indoors and outdoors for about 20 years now. I don’t trad because the risk outweighs the fun for me.

Generally, IME, most common serious injuries are rappelling injuries, falls sustained while setting up anchors, or easily preventable mistakes that occur while you’re actually in the least peril but most easily distracted by the mundane. For example, with both feet firmly planted on the ground, you unbuckle part of your harness to pee, then forget to do it back up again, resulting in an injury later.

As in Sage Rats link, a large number of injuries outdoors are serious but survivable. E.g./ you fall, your rope catches you, but the during the shock-absorbing rope stretch, you catch your ankle and break it. You should note that Sage Rat’s link is also about Yosemite - BIG WALLS - that are mostly multi-pitch trad climbs that can takes days to complete, so you will be sleeping overnight suspended from the cliff face.

Those stats reflect the injuries and fatalities for Yosemite, not outdoor climbing in general. For example other major climbing areas such as Rumney and Red River Gorge will have very different stats, since the nature of the climbing at those areas is radically different.

I have nothing to say about ice climbing because I’ve never done it. I don’t like the cold and I don’t like the unpredictability of ice.

6

Uh… my above post was mostly comparing the danger of outdoor climbing to indoor climbing.

If I were to compare the danger to other activities, I’d say…

Top-rope climbing indoors would be comparably as dangerous as riding your bike to work.

Top-rope climbing outdoors would be comparably as dangerous as riding your bike to work during rush hour.

Sport leading would be comparably as dangerous as riding your bike to work during rush hour in the rain in the big city.

Trad climbing would be comparably as dangerous as riding your bike to work during rush hour in the rain at night with no lights in New York City with an “I hate cab drivers!” t-shirt.

Multi-pitch trad climbing would be comparably as dangerous as sky diving.

7

Actually, your presumption is incorrect. Yosemite National Park is primarily a “traditional climbing area” and is extremely limited when it comes to any other climbing styles. You may find a handful of bouldering challenges, but top rope climbing essentially does not exist, and there are no bolts for sport climbing except of some exceptionally severe faces that have quite a high death potential and still require traditional gear. Additionally, Yosemite is in adventure terrain, and requires people to be knowledgeable and experienced in backcountry hiking and camping in bear country. I was there last fall and I would not consider Yosemite stats to be easily comparable to any other climbing area. Edit: I did not climb in Yosemite. My partner and I did a lot of research into it and determined there were too few routes where we could climb safely to make it worth our while. Most of the climbing was too advanced.

8

Given that the stats are still fairly benign, I’d say that this makes it likely that anyplace else would only be better.

I’m surprised there aren’t beginners areas in Yosemite though. Sure they have lots of massive, straight faces, but there’s rocks and cliffs of all sizes and 90% of everyone is still a lazy-assed American and is going to find all those easy places.

9

I agree. An accident at Yosemite is likely to be a “big accident”. They have tens of thousands of climbers and roughly 2.5 fatalities a year. I looked up an area in Kentucky that also has thousands of clibers every year (if not tens of thousands) and they had two fatal accidents, one of the accidents had both climber and belayer parish, from Nov. 2008 to Feb. 2010. The double-death accident was due to equipment failure; the teens were using an old rope.

The reason you see few beginners at Yosemite is due to good outdoorsmanship. The impact that would be caused if everyone hopped onto every face they see at the side of the trail would be significant. It is generally considered poor form to disturb cliffs that are not in developed climbing areas.

10

Any kind of hard statistic will be elusive, I think. Some activities have fairly good ideas of the number of actual events and accidents, such as number of skydives or miles driven per accident. The number of successful pitches or ski runs per event, OTOH, is probably far less precisely known.

I recommend the book Deep Survival, if your interested in how people’s minds conspire against them.

11

Ugh. That was “perish”, I was multi-tasking and not paying attention.

Anyway, to expand a bit and elaborate on Swallowed’s post. I’d say the main types of climbing are as follows:

Bouldering: (picture) Climbing large rocks and short faces. No rope or harness is required. You stay close to the ground, some people bring a mattress or a “crash pad”. You’re only climbing rocks about the size of a school bus. It focuses very heavily on technique and balance. Danger is minimal.

Top rope: (picture) the rope goes through an anchor at the top of the climb and the belayer is (usually) on the ground. Outdoors, you must be able to hike to the top of the climb to install your top anchors. If the climber falls, there is a negligible drop, just the stretch of the rope. Risks are from swinging and bumping into a tree or neighbouring rock face, and basic environmental dangers. For example, an angry raccoon peed on my friend. There should be two independent anchors at the top in the unlikely event that one fails. Danger is minimal.

Lead climbing: (picture) the climber clips into protection and he/she ascends. If the climber falls he/she will drop to the most recent piece of protection, plus all the slack, plus the rope stretch. Such dynamic falling is tough on equipment and it should be retired if subjected to too many big falls.

Sub-categories of leading:

Sport lead: (picture) the lead climber clips into permanently fixed protection, often bolts that are drilled into the rock face and also epoxied in place. Risk is higher due to the possibility of equipment failure from damaged or improperly installed bolts, plus the bigger falls as described above, can lead to bumps and bruises if you lose control of it. Danger is low unless you take unnecessary risks such as clipping into obviously compromised bolts.

Traditional (Trad) lead: (picture) The climber places protection into cracks and fissures in the rock face. Risk is high due to possibility of protection failure (poorly/improperly placed protection, rock shatters, etc.) Danger high.

Multi-pitch: (picture) Trad climbing on a face that takes several stages to complete. I think the pic is from Yosemite. It has your standard trad risks plus you may be hundred of feet up, plus all the everyday things you need to do, like eat dinner, poop, and sleep are done while hanging hundred of feet in the air. Sudden unexpected storms can be terrifying. Danger is severe to extreme.

12

The main issue is that beginners top-rope. In order to top-rope the top has to be accessible to set up your anchors and feed your rope through it. So if you can’t walk to the top you won’t be climbing it.

Secondly, at least at Yosemite, lazy-assed American’s aren’t going to bother driving out that far. They’re going to be lazy and stick with the smaller crags near home with established top-rope areas. Yosemite requires a bigger commitment than the average day-tripper will want to do.

Most public lands have restrictive policies for bolting routes and/or climbing communities that frown on drilling into the rock face if it isn’t worth it. Yosemite allows bolting, but here’s the catch: power drills are prohibited in designated wilderness areas. So you can add bolts, if you are willing the hand drill into the rock. So for intermediate/beginners the choice of easy sport routes can be very limited, and not worth the effort of the trek out there.

13

Not all multi-pitch is on big walls. In states with tall enough crags, there are plenty of friendly routes for a day trip that are only three or four pitches, so bivouacs and poop tubes aren’t needed.

There’s an area in Texas that has multi-pitch sport routes! I haven’t had the opportunity or training to give it a go yet, but I wanna!

14

We have tons of multi-pitch sport routes around here! It’s a pretty popular sport.

I just want to highlight something that was mentioned earlier by Swallowed my Cellphone:

This is very true. Injuries in climbing are only rarely due to equipment failure - and even when it does fail, it is often because the owner did not take care of it or retire it when it had reached the end of it’s life (it is hard to retire a $400 rope after one good fall, but it has to be done).

15

I read that nobody has ever died due to a rope breaking. (unlike in the movies where sharp rocks break ropes all the time)

16

Where!Where!Where!Where! Tell me! Tell me now!

I’ve retired a 5-year-old harness I’ve never even worn! :frowning: The main worry of equipment failure, IME, would be things like bolts and permanent anchors, like this rusted out bolt probably won’t catch you if you take a 30-foot whipper. Or this bolt which is in good shape, but the rock itself is not longer stable. Especially, in climates that have vicious freeze-thaw cycles, if any water gets into cracks in or around bots, you have to inspect the anchors carefully before trusting your life to them.

But personal equipment failure is so rare (if you take care of it, replace it regularly etc.), it was considered a Huge Big Deal when a famous climber, Todd Skinner died when his belay loop broke as he was descending. His harness was known to be in poor shape and the day he fell to his death, his climbing partner had commented in its condition (belay loop partically torn and frayed) and Skinner had agreed he needed to replace it. So again, totally preventable if he’d just followed basic care guidelines and replaced his harness.

17

As a former climber (now come to his sense), I always wondered if this invention would fly:
-it would be a large soft rubber suction cup, that would adhere to any rock face. If you felt very uncomfortable (about to lose your grip), this cup would hold you to the wall for hours, untill help could come.
Not very sporting, but better than losing your life!

18

The two-person fatality that EC mentioned above due to rope failure was actually webbing failure and poor judgement. I assumed that “Kentucky” referred to Red River Gorge and I’d never heard of a fatal accident there, so I looked it up. It wasn’t an “old rope” that killed them, it was a piece of old webbing (second part of the article) they were rappelling from at the same time without a second, redundant anchor (never rely on only one anchor). Interestingly, it was also the first fatality ever recorded at Red River and it’s got to have at least a hundred-year climbing history.

19

Missed the edit:

Sorry EC I did find a couple cites that say “rope failure”, but they were early media reports. So you were probably quoting correctly, but the reports were inaccurate and more accurate info came later.

What would be the point? If you felt you were in over your head, you could just have your belay lower you to safety. You can also rest indefinitely on most bolts or trad equipment.

20

I’ve only done indoor climbing, I don’t think I want to rely on a bolt placed outdoors when I have no idea who put it up and how secure it is.