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tradcragrat
Trad climber
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Dec 23, 2008 - 02:07pm PT
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Consider three scenarios:
1: A friend of a friend of mine was leading a 5.9 layback in yosemite. He got flamed and started running it out. He realized he was too far above his gear to come off, but too pumped to place pro; he had to keep climbing, which, of course, made the situation exponentially more dangerous with each move. By the top he was waaaay off the deck with nothing in between him and the ground. He desperately thrutched his way up the final moves and barely tagged the top jug. (Holy shit)
2a: I soloed a 10d in good control and it felt very easy. I wasn't close to falling off it.
2b. A few weeks later, I was doing a sketchy highball with one pad, and a really bad landing. I barely stuck the crux.It was shorter (30ish feet at the highest) than the other route, but potentially more dangerous?
3. Alex Honnold free solos reg. route half dome (holy shit). He does so in complete control and never feels as if he's about to fall. He's very solid and confident on the route.
I think these three scenarios illustrate that doing "dangerous" climbs effectively is significantly less dangerous than doing "safe" climbs dangerously.
If this Yoho fellow redid his statistics to account for the two categories of Those Who Are On Top of their Sh#t and Those Who Are Most Definitely Not on Top of Their Sh#t, he would find vastly different results.
Cheers.
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Dec 23, 2008 - 08:43pm PT
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"How many rounds would you "expect" to play in this game? The average length of play is 9999 picks of the red ball, or 10,000 rounds total. That would be over 27 years of daily play."
Didn't you state that there are 9999 red balls and one white one?
If so, I think you'd better re-do your calculations. IF you ever did any to begin with that is.
Do you REALLY think that on average you will NEVER hit the white ball until it's the only one left, which is what you are claiming?
Poser.
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murcy
climber
San Fran Cisco
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Dec 23, 2008 - 09:11pm PT
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you replace the ball each time you pick one, dirt.
good disdain, though!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Dec 23, 2008 - 09:16pm PT
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Yoho yahoo...
KISS principle:
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
I agree with whoever said a few solid techniques that you don't forget are less likely to be screwed up. Too many German knots/words makes me nervous. Too much technical/statistical BS in that article.
I still use the majority of the knots and skills I learned in the mid-seventies. I still climb almost often enough..and so do you Tarbuster! I have climbed with many people that I didn't know well, but prefer to climb with people I know VERY well.
All of my partners are still alive....save a few who passed from non-climbing related causes.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Dec 23, 2008 - 09:59pm PT
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"-Would you rather die climbing, or knitting?"
Knitting is out, I have a chronic fear of needles. I remember reading the case of a symphonic conductor who fatally, stabbed himself in the heart during a concert. Seems related.
We all make mistakes, have lapses, etc. Increased amount of experience gives you a larger quiver of tools to draw on when you make such a mistake/something goes wrong, etc.
Disclaimer; I've been doing this long enough that I do get lazy; Though I do get complacent, I make an effort to be in the moment at critical times.
I've only been climbing for 45 years and still have a lot to learn...
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Dec 23, 2008 - 10:07pm PT
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Any crafty person can cook numbers to fit an idea. Statistics are very easily manipulated if they're not normed off somethng pretty objective. Trad climbing is potentially dangerous, but
probably not much more than most other adventure sports.
JL
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Scrunch
Trad climber
Provo, Ut
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Dec 24, 2008 - 01:44am PT
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Time to be a contributor.
Numbers are nice. Climbing is dangerous, and it can be more dangerous depending on who you choose time climb with (or lack thereof) and your own skill set. and an infinite number of other factors.
There are other activities that are more dangerous and less dangerous, respectively. sometimes both.
Climbing may fall within an acceptable risk. It may not. kinda something you have to decide.
This is immaterial, however.
LIFE IS NOT THE FEAR OF DEATH.
Climb if you want, or don't, whatever. But don't make a decision based on a risk assessment extrapolated from data. Or do, but I believe your missing the point. Not of climbing, but of life.
I shudder thinking of existence based on the idea of risk assessment... it'd be like this cubicle with one of those adding machines and a low ceiling with florescent lighting and all you do all day is put numbers into the machine and pull the lever, forever... scares the piss out of me.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Dec 24, 2008 - 11:49am PT
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"It all comes down to livin' fast or dying slow."
Robert Earl Keen
Sure, climbing is dangerous. Even more so if you drive fast through the rain to get to the crags.
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jbar
Ice climber
Russia with love.
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Dec 24, 2008 - 04:41pm PT
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I'm terrible at saying things but often times I'll hear someone say exactly what I'm thinking. Here's a quote from Joe Tasker that came to mind reading the last couple of posts.
"the risks are only run because one believes the correct calculation has been made of how to avoid them in reaching a worthwile goal. Rather than being suicidal, the climbers I know all love life and fight furiously to hold on to it, and the same restless energy and enthusiasm helps them overcome the problems of everyday life and is transmitted to those around them."
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tradcragrat
Trad climber
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Dec 24, 2008 - 07:36pm PT
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Jbar:
.....werd.
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Dec 24, 2008 - 08:57pm PT
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Well, maybe I just and blind and stupid, cause I missed the line about with replacement, but I also wonder if it was added later-- HK could probably find out LOL.
BUT, there is still a huge problem with the one a day event as an evaluation of climbing danger.
You can't call the whole day one event, because EVERY TIME you do something on a climb that could result in death, that is an event as far as probability is concerned.
For instance, once a free soloist is high enough to die if he falls, then he's picking that ball ( actually rolling a die with 10,000 sides is a better way to look at it)EVERY TIME he makes a move.
For the trad climber, every rappel counts as one event, so if you do ten raps and build ten anchors and make 5 moves over possibly sketchy death pro, then you have had 25 rolls of the die.
(not sure where the 10,000 number came from, it might be higher or lower)
But at any rate, the point is, you roll that die every time you do something with death potential, not once for the whole day.
Mountaineers have it worse, since things happen to them beyond their control, like killer weather or a snow and ice cornice breaking off and killing the whole party, like happened at alpamanwhatisname in South America a few years back.
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Doug Hemken
climber
Madison, WI
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Dec 26, 2008 - 11:46am PT
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We could think of the probabilities attached to *every* move you make on a climb, and think of the probability distribution as exponential instead of geometric. In fact, we could think of lots of ways to make the probability model more nuanced.
And as several people have pointed out, we can consider the rewards/benefits in addition to the risks.
But my point was a much smaller one, merely about the probabilities themselves. Yoho trots out Dill's old numbers and tells us we should be horrified by them. My point is just that if you accept Dill's numbers at face value - accept them at their worst, even - they don't look that horrifying to me. At the rate I get out climbing, my expected duration of play is a couple of centuries.
Yoho wanted us to look at all those additional conditioning factors. But his discussion of the initial probabilities was so distracting for me, so unnecessarily alarmist, that I was not inclined to read the rest of his article. And those probabilities go straight to the question that Chris posed in his subject line.
To quote from above: "Any crafty person can cook numbers to fit an idea. Statistics are very easily manipulated...." It's true that numbers are sometimes (often?) used in a fast and loose way in public polemics. But then, too, "any crafty person can cook words to fit an idea. Rhetoric is very easily manipulated...."
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Buggs
Trad climber
Eagle River, Alaska
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Dec 26, 2008 - 07:29pm PT
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Good food for thought.
I don't know all that much about many of the topics/questions in the article.
I do know that I love moving over stone in any way, shape, or form.
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RY
Sport climber
Pasadena
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Jan 11, 2009 - 07:15pm PT
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this is from the author Yoho
Each sport has it's own peculiar aesthetic. Olympic lifting participants, for example, I would imagine have to accept the risk of ruining their knees and back if they are serious about it. Climbing as we know has risks, risks that non-climbers can't imagine accepting. This article is meant ONLY to underscore that those risks are impressive if you accept the assumptions about Dill's data that I made in the article. Obviously extrapolating general statistics to individuals is a foolish exercise (or perhaps I should even say an exercise only a fool would undertake).
Rest assured I'm just as crazy as the rest of you: I think Bridwell is a hero and climbing risks are worth it. Some of the duller blades who posted seem to have missed my satire (and maybe even had trouble with my prose).
Interesting: I tried to get this thing published in every North American climbing journal, and (while maybe it really isn't worthy) I think they were afraid of scaring off their clientele.
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Chris Roderick
climber
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Jan 11, 2009 - 11:22pm PT
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Wow, good thing this guy's a doctor and not a statistician.
If you roll a die and have a 1/6 chance of rolling a six, that doesn't mean you are certain to roll a six in six rolls.
Each roll is an independent event, because you didn't roll a six in the first five rolls doesn't mean the six is now "due". It's still a one in six chance on that last roll regardless.
Likewise each climbing "day" is an independent event, just because your belayer didn't drop you the last 200 times doesn't mean he's now more likely to do so.
That being said, there's no such thing as "probability" in real non-quantum life. Either you're destined to die climbing or you're not.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jan 12, 2009 - 01:56am PT
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Largo is right about statistics in general and those in particular gave me a headache; they're completely meaningless.
Then I went in convulsions reading:
"Small plane pilots have roughly the equivalent risks per hour (8.5) as Yosemite trad climbers. These people have been trained and tested exhaustively, their airplanes are subject to extensive maintenance requirements, and what they are doing is acknowledged (by everyone but the pilots themselves!) as very hazardous."
As a commercial pilot and flight instructor I think I can speak for all other flight instructors. Yes, they are trained and tested but one man's "exhaustively" is another man's "oh, that's good enough to pass." More to the point, as soon as that Flight Examiner signs 'em off it is Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead! Those first 100 hours after sign off are the most deadly. Then, after scaring the bejeezuz out of themselves (and their spouses) a few times they're usually good for a while. Then they start to think they've got it wired and can start pushing the envelope. Sound familiar? Trouble is you can't test 'em for psychological aptitude. The Armed Forces do, to a point, plus they spend over $1 million training somebody.
This is really just a lot a high-falutin' intellectual tomfoolery. It really boils down to this:
Yous gots your smart fellers and yous gots your fart smellers; some o' dem are lucky and some not so much. - Moe Howard (yeah, that Moe!)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan 12, 2009 - 02:28am PT
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Despite being an official "never-has-been who hasn’t really climbed much" and who has been restricted from commenting on "carnage in Eldorado", I still find the good doctor's presentation pretty stacked with personal bias on a lot of fronts. His intention is clearly good, but the results are pretty judgmental as he breezes through anchors, strangers, drugs, belay devices, etc. (though thank god he left out the quality of potential partner's marriages and family life as that really would have winnowed the herd).
All in all, I say he could use the aid of an objective editor familiar with the subject and material. Also, the inset climbing CV is fairly pointless if he's going to get down on climbers with better resumes.
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raymond phule
climber
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Jan 12, 2009 - 03:17am PT
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Jay Wood wrote:
"Or another way:
If you climbed EVERY day from age 16 to age 57 (15,000/365=41 years), you would statistically have 100% chance of dying during that time."
It is a good time to take a critical look at your calculations (or understanding of statistics) if your result in a statistical calculation is that something has a 100% chance to happen.
I believe the correct answer is 63% if you assume that the risk to die are independent.
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Doug Hemken
climber
Madison, WI
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Jan 12, 2009 - 11:45am PT
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Out of curiosity, I looked up some numbers on Devils Tower.
From 1937 through 2006, there were 133,528 recorded climber-days (my sources are Guilmette, Carrier, Gardiner, & Lindsay 2004, and the NPS Devils Tower web site). I have read recently (Pagel's article in the latest R&I, and elsewhere) that there have been 5 climbing fatalities at the Tower.
That would give us a fatality rate of about 3.7/100,000 climber-days, which puts it near the safer end of Dill's estimate of 5 deaths/100,000 climber-days.
Those are the statistics.
The probabilities, then:
Your risk of surviving a day of climbing is 0.99996
Your risk of surviving 35 days of climbing is 0.99865
Your risk of surviving 350 days is 0.98694
Your risk of surviving 41 years of daily climbing is 0.57077
Given a large population of climbers, who are forced to climb daily and who never die of non-climbing complications, the average climbing-life expectancy would be 73.116 years.
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ericz
climber
Ogden, UT
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Jan 13, 2009 - 04:37pm PT
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It would appear,.. there is an excess of anger and confusion in this human world. To be resistant to ideas, concepts that may afford a more balanced movement through this life,.. is simply shortsighted. With that stated, I look forward to 2009,.. and the wonderful energy of moving in the hills. Happy trails to all the dirtbaggers, in body and spirit.
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