Hear a climbing expert explain all the ways that Mt. Everest can kill you

[Anselm]

@FSogol

If you drive or travel in a car, you are taking part in something more dangerous than mountaineering.

Define “dangerous”. Way more people per year die in motor vehicle accidents than climbing accidents, but of course way, way, way more people go about in cars than attempt to climb mountains. If you compare car deaths per million miles of car travel to mountaineering deaths per million miles of mountaineering, the mountaineers will quite probably still end up on top.

By way of example, in 2020, people in the US travelled a total of 4.9 trillion miles by car. 38,824 people were killed in motor traffic accidents that year. That’s approximately 0.008 deaths per million miles of car travel. If we assume that hiking to the Mt. Everest base camp, while arduous and time-consuming, is not particularly dangerous compared to the actual ascent, then the distance from the Mt. Everest base camp to the summit is approximately 12.75 miles. About 800 people attempt to climb Mt. Everest per year, so that would be a total of somewhat more than 20,000 miles of distance covered. In 2020, nobody died on the climb (there was no climbing at all due to the COVID-19 pandemic), but during the last 5 active climbing seasons, excluding 2020, an average of 7.8 climbers lost their lives, hence, approximately 625 deaths per million miles of Mt. Everest climbing. Therefore, per million miles of travel, climbing Mt. Everest is around 78,000 times more dangerous to one’s life than riding in a car.

Note: This disregards the fact that people normally don’t arrive at the Mt. Everest base camp, go up to the summit and down again, and leave – climbing a mountain like Mt. Everest requires an intricate pattern of acclimatisation, rest at altitude, and familiarisation climbs that extends over weeks – but the order of magnitude doesn’t really change. Even if we assume that mountaineers cover 10 times the distance on the mountain, climbing Mt. Everest is, statistically, still 7,800 times more likely to kill you than travelling in a car. Also note that, as mentioned above, Mt. Everest is considered one of the easier 8,000m+ mountains to climb and it is very popular, which skews the statistics. For example, between 1939 and 2021, 377 people reached the summit of K2 while 91 died in the attempt.

[FSogol]

You picked the 2 most severe mountains in your example. While you stats are interesting, I don’t think a mileage comparison is app. You’ll won’t be able to compute it, but an hours spent driving vs hours spent mountaineering would support my assertion. Bottom line, driving and/or being on the road is the most dangerous activity for most people in Western Civilization.

[MikeR]

I wish I wasn’t so paralysed by fear of heights - because I can see the attraction of seeing the world from such an altitude. But the thought of actually being perched on the edge of a couple of kilometres of nothing - nope!

[Anselm]

@FSogol

You’ll won’t be able to compute it, but an hours spent driving vs hours spent mountaineering would support my assertion.

I’m not convinced. The thing about high-altitude mountaineering is that not many people do it and out of those, an appreciable percentage die. 8 deaths out of 800 is a lot. If there was a 1% chance of dying on one’s commute, everybody would work from home.

@FSogol

Bottom line, driving and/or being on the road is the most dangerous activity for most people in Western Civilization.

That is obviously true, although it is less an issue of relative danger than one of opportunity. The vast majority of people never even get the chance of dying on Mt. Everest because very, very few people ever get anywhere near the place to begin with. OTOH, in “Western civilisation”, cars are all over the place and even if you’re the safest driver in the world, you can still get hit and killed by some DUI bozo.

[FSogol]

@Anselm

I’m not convinced. The thing about high-altitude mountaineering

I never had the “high-altitude” caveat. At one point, K2 killed about 50% of the people trying to climb it. The Nazis in general foolishly threw people at unclimbed mountains for glory and it resulted in a lot of climbing deaths. The deaths on K2 are much less these days. Take out climbers being paid to escort the rich to the top and the numbers would be even lower. A non-high attitude example, Mt Hood has a lot of deaths. While not being difficult, it catches the unprepared with disastrous results.

@Anselm

cars are all over the place and even if you’re the safest driver in the world

Interesting that there are few deaths in professional racing. Safety features on cars are responsible, but all the improved equipment in the world won’t stop mother nature from removing climbers from peaks.

[brettvk]

Can’t watch, acrophobia. The ladder over the crevasse got me.

[timd]

1:37,932 micromorts when comparing 230 miles in a car against an attempted ascent of Everest.

@FSogol

few deaths in professional racing. Safety features on cars are responsible

I would add that driver quality/ability, medical aid immediately available and course safety features are also contributory to the survival of professional racers

[killick]

Who’s in charge here? I didn’t pay thousands of dollars and risk my life to stand in line for a 30 second photo op!

Yes, This Photo from Everest Is Real

[tcg550]

@Anselm

If there was a 1% chance of dying on one’s commute, everybody would work from home.

I don’t know about that. There was better than 1% chance of dying from covid early on and a lot of people said so what and wouldn’t lift a finger to help.

[knoxblox]

@brettvk

The ladder over the crevasse got me.

Observing that one part of the ladder was already bent…