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An excellent treatise arising out of accidents. 10-Jul-2013 At 1:35:13 PM Nick Clow

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There is a dearth of data about climbing accidents/injuries (particularly about the rate of climbing accidents/injuries) and this is indeed a very interesting and informative read.

Obviously this report is specific to Yosemite, so one should bear in mind that there may be specific factors about climbing in Yosemite that are different from climbing in general.

From the report:
> The NPS keeps no statistics on how many climbers use the park, but 25,000 to 50,000 climber-days annually is a fair estimate. With this in mind, 2.5 deaths and a few serious injuries per year may seem a pretty low rate.

The report says elsewhere:
- that there are around 100 accidents per year;
- there are about 50 fractures per year.
(Also of interest is that it says that, aside from the 51 deaths over the 20 year period, there would have been 45 more deaths if it were not for climbers being rescued.)

Contrary to the highlighted statement above, my reaction is that (aside possibly from the death number) these are quite high rates!

Given their estimate of climbing days of 25,000 to 50,000 per year (which they admit is guesswork), let's take the low estimate and extrapolate that on every single day that you go climbing you have:
- a 1 in 250 chance of being in a climbing accident;
- a 1 in 500 chance of sustaining a fracture; and
- a 1 in 10,000 chance of being killed.

I have been climbing on 1,500 days in the last 15 years. In actuarial terms, using the above rates (and I know I wasn't wasn't climbing in Yosemite) this means I should have been in 6 climbing accidents and sustained 3 fractures.