TABLE II

Accident and Mortality Rates for Mountaineers in National Parks, and National Monuments †

1958-62

Rates per 1000 registered climbers in parentheses

Number of registered climbers

36,375

Number of persons involved in accidents 202 (5.6)

Number

injured

106

(2.9)

Number

killed

26

(0.72)



†Devil’s Tower, Glacier, Grand Teton, Mount McKinley, Mt. Rainier*, Olympic*, Rocky Mountain, and Yosemite.

*1957-61.

When these results are compared with the earlier data, the mortality rates are the same but the accident frequency is higher. It should be emphasized that the type of climbing done in most of these parks requires a higher degree of technical skill than the average type of climbing. In addition a certain amount of screening of climbers is done so that only the more competent are doing the climbing. On the other hand, many of these areas are readily accessible and, therefore, attract many climbers. These data are also subject to the same criticisms of those obtained earlier, namely possible under-registration, and under-reporting of minor injuries by the climbers. These are probably less important in this more recent compilation, and, therefore, more credence can be given to the data. It would be more likely that they may be overestimates because of the type of climbing involved. Also no correction has been made for the number of days an individual may have climbed. For example in Mt. McKinley, an individual may be exposed for 20 or more days.

A further analysis was done to try to evaluate the risk of rock climbing versus snow climbing. For this purpose the data from Mt. Rainier, Mt. McKinley, and the Olympics have been pooled for data on snow climbs, and the rest have been pooled for rock climbing. The results are presented in Table III.