leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

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rdp32
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leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by rdp32 »

Does anyone have any numbers/stats on the causes of deaths during winter in CO (during outdoor recreation pursuits, and hiking/climbing in particular)? It seems like everyone mostly talks about avalanches, but according to the graphs on this site (https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents ... -reporting) and the tables on this site (https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents/us), it looks like on average only 1-2 hikers/climbers die in avalanches in CO each year (I looked at the last decade; numbers were generally a little lower before that). Note that I limited this to just hikers and climbers, not to all outdoor recreation activities (such as skiing, snowmobiling, etc.)

1-2 avy deaths per year is much lower than I would have expected! I'm guessing that other common dangers such as slipping and falling, freezing to death after getting lost, getting in a car accident on the drive home, etc. likely actually present greater dangers in winter. Does anyone have any numbers on this?

In my brief internet search, I didn't find any numbers/info for winter deaths statewide; the only info I found is for Rocky Mountain National Park specifically. In the past 10 years, there have been 49 deaths (https://outforia.com/danger-parks/), which is an average of 4.9 per year. That number is the total number of deaths per year. In the past 20 years, there have been 2 avalanche deaths (https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2 ... 458199001/), which is an average of 0.1 avalanche deaths per year. So in this very-small sample size, 1/49 of the total deaths in RMNP occur due to avalanches.

But that above ratio of 1/49 is for total deaths year-round; what I would like to know is the ratio of (avalanche deaths )/(total deaths) during the winter months specifically. Most of those RMNP deaths presumably occur during the non-winter, since that's when the park is the most busy. I don't have the numbers for winter deaths in the park, but I can estimate it based on the visitation stats, which are publicly available. In RMNP, about 13% of visitation hours were in the five months between December and April (https://irma.nps.gov/STATS/SSRSReports/ ... ?Park=ROMO); these are the months when the vast majority of avalanches occur (https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents ... -reporting). So if we assume that 13% of the year-round RMNP deaths occur during these "winter" months, then that means an average of 0.13 * 4.9 = 0.637 deaths occur per year during the winter months in RMNP. In reality it is probably higher than this, because there are other objective factors at that time of year (icy roads and trails, colder and shorter days, etc.). But even according to this conservative estimate, less than 1/6 of winter deaths appear to be from avalanches. This is an obscenely small sample size, but the numbers just don't make avalanches look like the scariest hazard for winter hiking/climbing.

This RMNP sample size is probably way too small to draw meaningful conclusions from. Hence my main question here: does anyone have more comprehensive numbers/stats for causes of deaths (for hikers/climbers) in CO during the winter season?
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by JROSKA »

I don’t have hard numbers, but it seems to me like in calendar winter, whenever we hear about a mountain fatality, (not just in Colorado) it’s usually accompanied with a description of harsh & extreme cold, like minus 20 with 35-50 mph wind etc. If anyone does have real numbers and statistics, that would be my bet as to what leads to the overwhelming majority of winter fatalities.
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by speth »

Consider the type of terrain that's being accessed by hikers and climbers versus snowmobilers and skiers - snowmobilers and skiers and recreating in terrain that has potential to slide because that's the terrain where their sport exists. Slide-prone areas aren't usually the home of hikers and climbers.

And also consider the access to those areas. Snowmobilers and skiers by their nature have the ability to cover larger distances to access areas that might otherwise be inaccessible to those on foot. Not to discount that there are areas closer to the front-country that are avalanche prone, but distance alone might be a deterrent enough to explain your low numbers.

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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by andrewhamilton »

I’m also interested in some numbers on this topic. It would be interesting to have the numbers that did not include rocky mountain national park just because you get such a wide variety of people, both experienced and inexperienced, not to mention large quantity of people in the area. Seems like data from that area might skew the data from the rest of the state.

I’d be curious about these numbers in others area of the state, as in what are these rates in the sangres versus the elks vs the San Juan’s.

Maybe search and rescue organizations from each of those areas would be the best resource.
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by daway8 »

But to these numbers you also need to add the total population of hikers who even go anywhere near avy terrain in winter.

An extreme example just to make the point: if only 10 hikers per year go near avy terrain then suddenly 1-2 deaths/year becomes an enormous percentage.

Obviously 10 hikers is probably a ridiculously small estimate but if you're excluding skiing/snowmobiling/etc and consider how many more people stay home in winter vs summer and then also consider what percentage of winter hikers even on this site take strictly only ridge routes with essentially zero avy danger...

Well once you narrow the crowd down to just people hiking on foot (not skis/snowmobiles/etc) in an area where there is some possibility they might get caught in an avalanche - I'm not so sure there's all that big of a crowd that fits that description. Thus any deaths per year becomes statistically more significant. But it would be interesting to see some actual data...
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by mtree »

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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by Dave B »

Considering the number of complete knobs out at any popular backcountry area any given weekend, 1-2 deaths per year is absurdly low.

Was chatting with a buddy about this last night, in contrast to big wave surfing as we were discussing the huge Eddie Aikau comp from last month. He was remarking at how few surfers die in big waves, my thought was that it takes skills, experience, and giant balls to even paddle out in big surf. Anyone with a pair of snowshoes can put themselves in avy terrain.

Anyways, avy deaths seem to be inline with shark or bear attacks, very few for number of people in the ocean/grizzly areas, but they're scary af sounding and are thus emphasized disproportionately.
Last edited by Dave B on Wed Feb 08, 2023 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by two lunches »

CAIC has a report for deaths since 1951.

isolating the data to Colorado, between Dec-Mar (which probably includes a couple days outside of either meteorological or calendar winter), i'm seeing 3.5 deaths per winter- just from avalanches. if you also include spring (April/May/June), that number jumps up to about 4. if you isolate the data to only include 10 years from 2013-2022, that number skyrockets to more than 6 per year. again, if you isolate that to dec-mar, it's still over 5 per winter.
https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents ... -reporting

just trying to confirm that you suspect there are more than 5 deaths per winter from non-avalanche-related accidents/oversights? like hypothermia, animal attacks, etc?

also april is not technically "winter"
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by rdp32 »

speth wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:03 am Consider the type of terrain that's being accessed by hikers and climbers versus snowmobilers and skiers - snowmobilers and skiers and recreating in terrain that has potential to slide because that's the terrain where their sport exists. Slide-prone areas aren't usually the home of hikers and climbers.

And also consider the access to those areas. Snowmobilers and skiers by their nature have the ability to cover larger distances to access areas that might otherwise be inaccessible to those on foot. Not to discount that there are areas closer to the front-country that are avalanche prone, but distance alone might be a deterrent enough to explain your low numbers.
Yeah, I think that's exactly right I think. Other activities like skiing or snowmobiling cover much larger distances, and thus might put people into more avalanche-prone areas.
Dave B wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 8:52 am Considering the number of complete knobs out at any popular backcountry area any given weekend, 1-2 deaths per year is absurdly low.

Was chatting with a buddy about this last night, in contrast to big wave surfing as we were discussing the huge Eddie Aikau comp from last month. He was remarking at how few surfers die in big waves, my thought was that it takes skills, experience, and giant balls to even paddle out in big surf. Anyone with a pair of snowshoes can put themselves in avy terrain.

Anyways, avy deaths seem to be inline with shark or bear attacks, very few for number of people in the ocean/grizzly areas, but they're scary af sounding and are thus emphasized disproportionately.
That's what I'm starting to think. So many people think that bears or wolves are the danger to be worried about when you go backpacking in the summer, when in reality other dangers like falling, drowning, car crashes on the drive, etc. are almost surely much more likely causes of death for summer backpacking. This isn't a perfect analogy--my impression is that avalanches do indeed represent a larger threat (for hikers/climbers in CO) than wildlife for summer backpackers--but it does seem like avalanche danger might get a disproportionate amount of attention relative to other hazards. But I'm not sure of this; it would be nice to have better numbers to back it up.
daway8 wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:38 am An extreme example just to make the point: if only 10 hikers per year go near avy terrain then suddenly 1-2 deaths/year becomes an enormous percentage...
Well once you narrow the crowd down to just people hiking on foot (not skis/snowmobiles/etc) in an area where there is some possibility they might get caught in an avalanche - I'm not so sure there's all that big of a crowd that fits that description. Thus any deaths per year becomes statistically more significant. But it would be interesting to see some actual data...
Yeah, I had the exact same thoughts as you. That's why I looked into the numbers for RMNP--the visitation stats per month are publicly available (so I know what percentage of visitation there is in the avalanche-prone months), and the total number of deaths is available too. And I figure most of the outdoor activity there is hiking/climbing (as opposed to snowmobiling, skiing, etc). So you can estimate the number of total-deaths-during-avy-season as well as the number of avy-deaths. And it looks like less than 1/6 or 1/7 of the deaths during avy season are from avalanches there. But again, that's a very small sample size.
andrewhamilton wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 6:58 am I’m also interested in some numbers on this topic. It would be interesting to have the numbers that did not include rocky mountain national park just because you get such a wide variety of people, both experienced and inexperienced, not to mention large quantity of people in the area. Seems like data from that area might skew the data from the rest of the state.

I’d be curious about these numbers in others area of the state, as in what are these rates in the sangres versus the elks vs the San Juan’s.

Maybe search and rescue organizations from each of those areas would be the best resource.
Yeah, the RMNP data might be a bit biased. For example, there are rangers there who can tell people which hikes have avalanche danger (thus leading to fewer avy deaths). And so many people just hike to Emerald Lake or Mills Lake/The Loch, which are avy safe, so that may skew the stats as well. But on the other hand, there are also probably a higher number of clueless people there, which may skew the numbers the other way. And yeah, I like your idea of reaching out to SAR organizations to see if they have numbers.
two lunches wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 8:54 am isolating the data to Colorado, between Dec-Mar (which probably includes a couple days outside of either meteorological or calendar winter), i'm seeing 3.5 deaths per winter- just from avalanches. if you also include spring (April/May/June), that number jumps up to about 4. if you isolate the data to only include 10 years from 2013-2022, that number skyrockets to more than 6 per year. again, if you isolate that to dec-mar, it's still over 5 per winter.
https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents ... -reporting
I restricted my numbers to just hikers and climbers (since those are the activities that interest me. Those are also the activities of greatest interest to this site I assume), and did not include skiing, snowmobiling, etc. I'm assuming your numbers are for all avalanche deaths?
[/quote]
two lunches wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 8:54 am also april is not technically "winter"
Yes, by "winter" I meant avalanche season. Most avalanches happen between Dec and Apr (over 86%, per one of the graphs on this page: https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents ... -reporting).
JROSKA wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:32 pm I don’t have hard numbers, but it seems to me like in calendar winter, whenever we hear about a mountain fatality, (not just in Colorado) it’s usually accompanied with a description of harsh & extreme cold, like minus 20 with 35-50 mph wind etc. If anyone does have real numbers and statistics, that would be my bet as to what leads to the overwhelming majority of winter fatalities.
Yeah, recently I was thinking of hiking to Chasm Lake, but I posted some questions here about various RMNP hikes during winter, and several experienced and knowledgeable people advised against that hike due to avalanche danger. So I was considering heading up to Mt Lady Washington instead, which has much less avalanche danger, but it was a high-wind day (as is usual in CO), and at some point I realized that climbing a peak in windy conditions may well be more dangerous than avalanches on a route like Chasm Lake. (so instead I did neither and stayed home, which in the long run will increase my chances of dying from other causes such as heart disease. But that's a different topic for a different day). It did get me thinking about what's actually the most dangerous in the winter though. I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct about cold+wind.
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by daway8 »

rdp32 wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:11 am ...but it does seem like avalanche danger might get a disproportionate amount of attention relative to other hazards.
But consider the nature of the other risks out there you have mentioned as compared to avalanches:

Car accident on the drive home: no one is unaware that driving can be dangerous. Everyone is required by law to have a base level of "training" and/or knowledge (driver's license tests, etc).

Slipping and falling: No one is unaware that you can slip and fall especially on snowy/icy rocks. Everyone has had some degree of "training" in dealing with this by virtue of being a human and having slipped and fallen at various points throughout life under various circumstances.

Freezing to death: No one is unaware that you can freeze to death if it gets cold enough. Everyone has had some degree of "training" to deal with this (Kid: "Mommy I'm freezing!" Mom: "Well put on your coat before you go outside sweety.")

Etc, etc...

Avalanche: Many people regularly go past regions known to have avalanche danger (there are some such spots in the popular Bear Lake corridor in RMNP, for example) but are totally oblivious to it. Many people have had no training in regards to the potential danger because they're never encountered an avalanche in person and there's nothing in daily life that prepares you for it.

So does avalanche danger get a disproportionate amount of attention compared to these other dangers that cause as many or maybe even more deaths? Yes, of course it does as it should - because it's a different kind of danger that you need to go out of your way to intentionally gain at least a few bits of extra knowledge that are not part of most people's daily lives in order to be aware of, and know how to safely deal with this danger.
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by Chicago Transplant »

Regarding avalanches, and awareness of avalanche terrain, I think a lot of people don't realize how shallow avalanche terrain can sometimes feel. By building code a stair (like the one in your office building, residential codes are a little different) can be 7" rise and 11" run max, that is 32.5 degrees. People walk up stairs all the time and don't think of that as being "steep". But if you are hiking anything about equal to or steeper than a normal flight of stairs, you are in avalanche terrain as most avalanches occur in the 30-45 degree range.

if you want a quick way to figure out slopes in the field without an inclinometer, you can pre-mark your poles for various slope conditions you want to check, I'd recommend marking one at 24" and then starting at 10", mark every 2" on the other one for however steep you want to go. Then you can stick the one with the 10" etc marks in the ground and see where the 24" one hits when its sideways. You may want a small pocket level too to make sure you get everything squared up.

Conversion Table:
10:24 = 22.6 degrees
12:24 = 26.6 degrees
14:24 = 30.3 degrees
16:24 = 33.7 degrees
18:24 = 36.9 degrees
20:24 = 39.8 degrees
22:24 = 42.5 degrees
24:24 = 45 degrees

You can even do a quick check if you don't have them marked. If your poles are the same length, then if the horizontal one hits halfway down the vertical one you are at 26.6 degrees and 1/4 down from the top is 36.9 degrees.
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Re: leading causes of winter deaths for hikers/climbers in CO

Post by Jorts »

Chicago Transplant wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 1:35 pm Regarding avalanches, and awareness of avalanche terrain, I think a lot of people don't realize how shallow avalanche terrain can sometimes feel. By building code a stair (like the one in your office building, residential codes are a little different) can be 7" rise and 11" run max, that is 32.5 degrees. People walk up stairs all the time and don't think of that as being "steep". But if you are hiking anything about equal to or steeper than a normal flight of stairs, you are in avalanche terrain as most avalanches occur in the 30-45 degree range.

if you want a quick way to figure out slopes in the field without an inclinometer, you can pre-mark your poles for various slope conditions you want to check, I'd recommend marking one at 24" and then starting at 10", mark every 2" on the other one for however steep you want to go. Then you can stick the one with the 10" etc marks in the ground and see where the 24" one hits when its sideways. You may want a small pocket level too to make sure you get everything squared up.

Conversion Table:
10:24 = 22.6 degrees
12:24 = 26.6 degrees
14:24 = 30.3 degrees
16:24 = 33.7 degrees
18:24 = 36.9 degrees
20:24 = 39.8 degrees
22:24 = 42.5 degrees
24:24 = 45 degrees

You can even do a quick check if you don't have them marked. If your poles are the same length, then if the horizontal one hits halfway down the vertical one you are at 26.6 degrees and 1/4 down from the top is 36.9 degrees.
Alternatively... smartphones have inclinometers now.

On a serious note, many if not most hikers who die in avalanches trigger them from below. The two hikers who perished with their dog on Hoosier Pass last winter come to mind. They undercut a dangerous slope. Storm slabs and wind slabs generally fracture at your feet down and cross slope. But persistent slabs often fracture above you. On days when there's a persistent slab concern, be mindful of what's above you and shoot for an alpha angle at least under 20 - the angle from where you're standing to what you guesstimate to be a suspect slope above.
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