Interesting exercise in statistical cherry-picking.
Mt Washington has killed so many people almost entirely because it is so easy to get to. 300,000 people visit its summit annually. And since 1947, 32 people have died. It would not surprise me if old age was represented among those 32 deaths, because with that huge number of people somebody would be bound to die of something no matter how mild the weather was–which is not to say it doesn’t have dangerous weather, I hasten to add, the Internet operating purely on binary logic.
Compare this with Mt Rainier, where more like 10,000 people attempt the summit every year, only about half of them even make it, and 87 people have died.
To rate Mt Washington “the deadliest” they created this weird metric “deaths per foot of elevation”. But any interstate has that beat. For example, I-5 had 193 fatalities in 2020 alone. I don’t know what its average elevation is but it’s average has got to be something well under 1000 feet, considering its length and that so much of it is near sea level.
Last time I checked an Interstate highway is not a mountain, but those are just words not statistics.
The deadliest non mountain in your house is the bathroom, many old people die there too, on the loo?
I hiked the entire ridge containing Mt. Washington, among other peaks, in one day when I was a teenager. It was sunny and pleasant the whole time. I certainly couldn’t do that today. Not only am I older, I’m probably smarter. Back then I would just head off with a canteen like it was a jaunt and would also drink from the streams when they were available.
Mt Washington has killed so many people almost entirely because it is so easy to get to. 300,000 people visit its summit annually. And since 1947, 32 people have died. It would not surprise me if old age was represented among those 32 deaths, because with that huge number of people somebody would be bound to die of something no matter how mild the weather was–which is not to say it doesn’t have dangerous weather, I hasten to add, the Internet operating purely on binary logic.
— Niketas Choniates
Fair point.
It would be interesting to see a calculation by percentage of deaths for mountains around the world, adjusting for the number of people who actually go there.
Not only am I older, I’m probably smarter. Back then I would just head off with a canteen like it was a jaunt and would also drink from the streams when they were available.
— Chuck
Yeah, awareness of risk usually rises with experience.
There’s been some studies that show that the self-confidence of mountaineers and other high-risk sportsmen and professionals like emergency responders rises with experience, levels off, and then as experience increases it begins to fall again.
The reason is that they get better at it as they do it, then with the passage of time they also become more aware of the limits of their increased skills relative to the risks (plus in many cases there would likely be awareness of declining physical ability with age, too).
The more you know the more confident you become, up to a point, past which the more you continue to learn the more humble/cautious it makes you.
Dunning-Kreuger can kill.
I’m only a few hours away from Mount Washington. I’ve been there several times, but have never climbed to the top. Beautiful area.
@HC68:It would be interesting to see a calculation by percentage of deaths for mountains around the world, adjusting for the number of people who actually go there.
The video is based on some clickbait articles that have been going around online for some time.
To get a real answer would be a lot of looking stuff up. You’d have to compare apples to apples: people summiting one on foot vs summiting the other on foot.
1.5 million people visit Mt Rainier National Park every year, but only 10,000 try to summit (it can only be done on foot), and on average 5 people die, but typically only one of those five people was trying to summit. The other four are just there for the day. The death rate for those who just visit the park is far, far lower than the death rate from attempting the summit (2.7 per million vs 100 per million).
I’ve never been to Mt Washington but literally 300K people visit its summit annually, you don’t have to hike it, you can drive or take a train. So it’s not like Rainier or Denali in that sense: 300K is not really the right number to use but I’m not sure what the right number would be. I’ve seen 50,000 as an estimate for people hiking to the top. I’ve read that the lines look like Six Flags.
If Mt Washington really were more dangerous to summit on foot than Mt Rainier, we should expect at minimum five times as many deaths. If all 32 deaths counted in the video were really people who died trying to hike to the summit, there should have been more like 150 if Mt Washington were even as dangerous as Mt Rainier.
In any event the deaths per foot of elevation metric is just silly if it rates Mt Washington more dangerous to climb than Rainier or Denali; it badly misstates the conditional risk.
All this is not to say that Mt Washington won’t kill you, it certainly can. It’s plenty dangerous enough for people who don’t know what they are doing and very bad weather can develop very suddenly.
It’s not quite the same thing as this topic, but I recall an article many years ago when cell phones (not smartphones) and Garmin style hand-held GPS devices first became common.
The people in the rescue business noticed a huge jump in business. So many novice hikers would set out with those two devices as their security blanket. Oops, I’m lost or too tired. Please come get me.
Just because you have a map with your location marked, doesn’t mean you know how to read it and navigate the area.
It takes two days on foot to climb Mt. Raineer.
The physical requirements required for the two mountains (Washington vs Raineer) are incomparable.
Mountains are different in their dangers and in the routes taken on each. Mt. Adams was easy peasy on a warm summer weekend. Mt. Hood kills from time to time as does Mt. Raineer.
But Nick will write another tome minimizing that essential characteristic.
Paid by the word?
I intend to die in the bathroom by falling off a ladder, just to mess with the stats.
I climbed MT Washington many times – as young as 12 and and as old as 33.
The problem is not the time it takes nor the actual difficulty. The problems are lack of preparedness and that has to do with immense weather variations.
You can start at 80F on a hot summer day with no wind. By the time you reach the summit, the wind is 60 to 80 mph and it is cold. The summit can be covered in fog/clouds with zero visibility. The tops of the Presidential Range are just lichen covered rocks. If you start in shorts, t-shirt and a back pack with (1) or (2) plastic 12 oz bottles of water, you could be very sorry.
Highest recorded wind speed on earth is 232 mph on Mt Washington’s peak. Nothing at the bottom in a parking lot prepares you properly for what is potentially waiting for you at the top. It can be extraordinarily a piece of cake one a day and brutal the next.
I live in Montana and hike in the Cabinet Mountain Wildnerness and Glacier National Park. They are typically easier than MT Washington due to the factors above.
The summit can be covered in fog/clouds with zero visibility.
That I remember,.
It is now being reported that Britain’s HMS Dragon— the only warship the Brits were able to send to supposedly “defend” British interests in Cyprus— a base and it’s citizens —has been withdrawn to some port in the eastern Mediterranean because of a problem with its water system.
What a pathetic, feeble joke the Royal Navy—which once ruled the oceans and a vast Empire—has become.
“Managed decline” indeed!
Trump is right.
We don’t need the help of the enfeebled UK.
If some country—any country— wanted to challenge the U.K. on the seas, could they put up any kind of real resistance?
It’s looking like the answer is no.
What about some sort of challenge on land, or in the air?
Well, if the HMS Dragon is any indication, it ain’t lookin good.
If you wanted to dig into the morbidity data you might find something different in the causes of death between Mt Washington and the others, hypothermia vs falls vs avalanche vs falling into a crevasse vs altitude sickness (hypoxica). But that would take a bit of work or just asking.
But you won’t be poisoned by a Sherpa on Mt. Washington.
So this afternoon my D acquaintances have truly gone off the deep end with their TDS. They are asking, in all seriousness, where to find KI, and other materials for a nuclear survival kit as they fully expect Trump to drop a nuke on Iran at 8pm tonight. and start a nuclear war. Calling their congress reps to have an emergency to stop him. I can’t believe this level of mental degradation among people I know to be otherwise stable.
Holy shit.
Where does the mind control hysteria originate, Bluesky, Facebook, MSNOW, CNN?
The Great Orange Whale lives in their worst nightmares. And some of the them are very dangerous, homicidal.
For the greater good.
@Snow on Pine: We don’t need the help of the enfeebled UK.
True.
Consider: Argentina invaded and occupied the Falklands. The British went to war, undeclared BTW, to take them back.
At first the US tried to broker a peace agreement, but when that went south, the Reagan administration switched to strong support of the UK, short of direct involvement.
* Support at the UN
* Sharing satellite and signals intelligence
* Allowed use of US base at Ascension Island.
* Provided fuel, equipment and logistical coordination
* Supplied advanced missiles for British jets
* Provided spare parts and matériel.
* Imposed sanctions on Argentina.
What did America care about the Falklands Islands? But when the UK called, we answered. Some say our support made the difference.
Pity that doesn’t work in both directions these days.
The worst part, of course, is that Britain’s decline–it appears on virtually all fronts–is not an accident, it is because of deliberate actions taken/or not taken by both the British leadership class and, as we’ve seen these past weeks, by the Crown.
It seems that Iran largely shutting down the strait of Hormuz is not just a big F-U to the rest of the world, but additionally a profit center for them.
They are charging a toll for the few ships going through. Plus, with the price of oil being much higher now, their on-going petro sales are much more profitable.
om: “you won’t be poisoned by a Sherpa on Mt. Washington”
Biden, or whoever was actually in charge, was trying to fix that.
Geez. As I make it, we’ve got 90 minutes to Trump’s deadline on Iran.
Still seems up in the air. I’d rather not bet on this one, but if I were to bet, I’d bet Iran will not back down and Trump will hit them hard.
P.S. It would be one thing if you saw someone in authority or the King standing up for native English people, for England’s Heritage, customs, way of life, values, and History, but that is not what I am seeing.
The only major figure I see doing something like that is Nigel Farage, and I’m not sure of he is really sincere in what he says, or, if he is just another very wiley politician, gathering power by saying what people want to hear.
Hope you’re not too disappointed, Huxley.
Maybe you’ll be lucky and get your burned offering of Persians in another fortnight.
I know you want it. Almost as bad as Miss Lindsay Graham.
Hang in there.
MagaMan:
Actually I’m relieved.
You don’t know me.
@MagaMan
Let’s all try to contain our blood lust.
Good idea. How are you going to apply that to the regime that has sponsored the murder of thousands of Americans and Israelis and shouted “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” for decades? Surely you are going to demand they also contain their blood lust?
Oh wait.
Hope you’re not too disappointed, Huxley.
Maybe you’ll be lucky and get your burned offering of Persians in another fortnight.
I know you want it. Almost as bad as Miss Lindsay Graham.
Hang in there.
Projection from a dishonest historical illiterate. If there is another “burnt offering of Persians” it will be down to the actions of the Iranian regime and/or its allies.
And the fervor of the apocalyptic die hards in said regime for burnt offerings of Persian lives exceeds even those by your caricature of Graham and your caricature of Huxley put together.
Frankly that probably plus your own bloodlust for Americans and Jews to die.
I’d say you should hang in there, but I would be tempted to add you can do it from one of your Mullah idols’ cranes.
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Interesting exercise in statistical cherry-picking.
Mt Washington has killed so many people almost entirely because it is so easy to get to. 300,000 people visit its summit annually. And since 1947, 32 people have died. It would not surprise me if old age was represented among those 32 deaths, because with that huge number of people somebody would be bound to die of something no matter how mild the weather was–which is not to say it doesn’t have dangerous weather, I hasten to add, the Internet operating purely on binary logic.
Compare this with Mt Rainier, where more like 10,000 people attempt the summit every year, only about half of them even make it, and 87 people have died.
To rate Mt Washington “the deadliest” they created this weird metric “deaths per foot of elevation”. But any interstate has that beat. For example, I-5 had 193 fatalities in 2020 alone. I don’t know what its average elevation is but it’s average has got to be something well under 1000 feet, considering its length and that so much of it is near sea level.
Last time I checked an Interstate highway is not a mountain, but those are just words not statistics.
The deadliest non mountain in your house is the bathroom, many old people die there too, on the loo?
I hiked the entire ridge containing Mt. Washington, among other peaks, in one day when I was a teenager. It was sunny and pleasant the whole time. I certainly couldn’t do that today. Not only am I older, I’m probably smarter. Back then I would just head off with a canteen like it was a jaunt and would also drink from the streams when they were available.
— Niketas Choniates
Fair point.
It would be interesting to see a calculation by percentage of deaths for mountains around the world, adjusting for the number of people who actually go there.
— Chuck
Yeah, awareness of risk usually rises with experience.
There’s been some studies that show that the self-confidence of mountaineers and other high-risk sportsmen and professionals like emergency responders rises with experience, levels off, and then as experience increases it begins to fall again.
The reason is that they get better at it as they do it, then with the passage of time they also become more aware of the limits of their increased skills relative to the risks (plus in many cases there would likely be awareness of declining physical ability with age, too).
The more you know the more confident you become, up to a point, past which the more you continue to learn the more humble/cautious it makes you.
Dunning-Kreuger can kill.
I’m only a few hours away from Mount Washington. I’ve been there several times, but have never climbed to the top. Beautiful area.
@HC68:It would be interesting to see a calculation by percentage of deaths for mountains around the world, adjusting for the number of people who actually go there.
The video is based on some clickbait articles that have been going around online for some time.
To get a real answer would be a lot of looking stuff up. You’d have to compare apples to apples: people summiting one on foot vs summiting the other on foot.
1.5 million people visit Mt Rainier National Park every year, but only 10,000 try to summit (it can only be done on foot), and on average 5 people die, but typically only one of those five people was trying to summit. The other four are just there for the day. The death rate for those who just visit the park is far, far lower than the death rate from attempting the summit (2.7 per million vs 100 per million).
I’ve never been to Mt Washington but literally 300K people visit its summit annually, you don’t have to hike it, you can drive or take a train. So it’s not like Rainier or Denali in that sense: 300K is not really the right number to use but I’m not sure what the right number would be. I’ve seen 50,000 as an estimate for people hiking to the top. I’ve read that the lines look like Six Flags.
If Mt Washington really were more dangerous to summit on foot than Mt Rainier, we should expect at minimum five times as many deaths. If all 32 deaths counted in the video were really people who died trying to hike to the summit, there should have been more like 150 if Mt Washington were even as dangerous as Mt Rainier.
In any event the deaths per foot of elevation metric is just silly if it rates Mt Washington more dangerous to climb than Rainier or Denali; it badly misstates the conditional risk.
All this is not to say that Mt Washington won’t kill you, it certainly can. It’s plenty dangerous enough for people who don’t know what they are doing and very bad weather can develop very suddenly.
It’s not quite the same thing as this topic, but I recall an article many years ago when cell phones (not smartphones) and Garmin style hand-held GPS devices first became common.
The people in the rescue business noticed a huge jump in business. So many novice hikers would set out with those two devices as their security blanket. Oops, I’m lost or too tired. Please come get me.
Just because you have a map with your location marked, doesn’t mean you know how to read it and navigate the area.
It takes two days on foot to climb Mt. Raineer.
The physical requirements required for the two mountains (Washington vs Raineer) are incomparable.
Mountains are different in their dangers and in the routes taken on each. Mt. Adams was easy peasy on a warm summer weekend. Mt. Hood kills from time to time as does Mt. Raineer.
But Nick will write another tome minimizing that essential characteristic.
Paid by the word?
I intend to die in the bathroom by falling off a ladder, just to mess with the stats.
I climbed MT Washington many times – as young as 12 and and as old as 33.
The problem is not the time it takes nor the actual difficulty. The problems are lack of preparedness and that has to do with immense weather variations.
You can start at 80F on a hot summer day with no wind. By the time you reach the summit, the wind is 60 to 80 mph and it is cold. The summit can be covered in fog/clouds with zero visibility. The tops of the Presidential Range are just lichen covered rocks. If you start in shorts, t-shirt and a back pack with (1) or (2) plastic 12 oz bottles of water, you could be very sorry.
Highest recorded wind speed on earth is 232 mph on Mt Washington’s peak. Nothing at the bottom in a parking lot prepares you properly for what is potentially waiting for you at the top. It can be extraordinarily a piece of cake one a day and brutal the next.
I live in Montana and hike in the Cabinet Mountain Wildnerness and Glacier National Park. They are typically easier than MT Washington due to the factors above.
The summit can be covered in fog/clouds with zero visibility.
That I remember,.
It is now being reported that Britain’s HMS Dragon— the only warship the Brits were able to send to supposedly “defend” British interests in Cyprus— a base and it’s citizens —has been withdrawn to some port in the eastern Mediterranean because of a problem with its water system.
What a pathetic, feeble joke the Royal Navy—which once ruled the oceans and a vast Empire—has become.
“Managed decline” indeed!
Trump is right.
We don’t need the help of the enfeebled UK.
If some country—any country— wanted to challenge the U.K. on the seas, could they put up any kind of real resistance?
It’s looking like the answer is no.
What about some sort of challenge on land, or in the air?
Well, if the HMS Dragon is any indication, it ain’t lookin good.
If you wanted to dig into the morbidity data you might find something different in the causes of death between Mt Washington and the others, hypothermia vs falls vs avalanche vs falling into a crevasse vs altitude sickness (hypoxica). But that would take a bit of work or just asking.
But you won’t be poisoned by a Sherpa on Mt. Washington.
So this afternoon my D acquaintances have truly gone off the deep end with their TDS. They are asking, in all seriousness, where to find KI, and other materials for a nuclear survival kit as they fully expect Trump to drop a nuke on Iran at 8pm tonight. and start a nuclear war. Calling their congress reps to have an emergency to stop him. I can’t believe this level of mental degradation among people I know to be otherwise stable.
Holy shit.
Where does the mind control hysteria originate, Bluesky, Facebook, MSNOW, CNN?
The Great Orange Whale lives in their worst nightmares. And some of the them are very dangerous, homicidal.
For the greater good.
@Snow on Pine: We don’t need the help of the enfeebled UK.
True.
Consider: Argentina invaded and occupied the Falklands. The British went to war, undeclared BTW, to take them back.
At first the US tried to broker a peace agreement, but when that went south, the Reagan administration switched to strong support of the UK, short of direct involvement.
* Support at the UN
* Sharing satellite and signals intelligence
* Allowed use of US base at Ascension Island.
* Provided fuel, equipment and logistical coordination
* Supplied advanced missiles for British jets
* Provided spare parts and matériel.
* Imposed sanctions on Argentina.
What did America care about the Falklands Islands? But when the UK called, we answered. Some say our support made the difference.
Pity that doesn’t work in both directions these days.
The worst part, of course, is that Britain’s decline–it appears on virtually all fronts–is not an accident, it is because of deliberate actions taken/or not taken by both the British leadership class and, as we’ve seen these past weeks, by the Crown.
It seems that Iran largely shutting down the strait of Hormuz is not just a big F-U to the rest of the world, but additionally a profit center for them.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6392709819112
They are charging a toll for the few ships going through. Plus, with the price of oil being much higher now, their on-going petro sales are much more profitable.
om: “you won’t be poisoned by a Sherpa on Mt. Washington”
Biden, or whoever was actually in charge, was trying to fix that.
Geez. As I make it, we’ve got 90 minutes to Trump’s deadline on Iran.
Still seems up in the air. I’d rather not bet on this one, but if I were to bet, I’d bet Iran will not back down and Trump will hit them hard.
huxley:
I just posted something on that.
Let’s all try to contain our blood lust.
P.S. It would be one thing if you saw someone in authority or the King standing up for native English people, for England’s Heritage, customs, way of life, values, and History, but that is not what I am seeing.
The only major figure I see doing something like that is Nigel Farage, and I’m not sure of he is really sincere in what he says, or, if he is just another very wiley politician, gathering power by saying what people want to hear.
Hope you’re not too disappointed, Huxley.
Maybe you’ll be lucky and get your burned offering of Persians in another fortnight.
I know you want it. Almost as bad as Miss Lindsay Graham.
Hang in there.
MagaMan:
Actually I’m relieved.
You don’t know me.
@MagaMan
Good idea. How are you going to apply that to the regime that has sponsored the murder of thousands of Americans and Israelis and shouted “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” for decades? Surely you are going to demand they also contain their blood lust?
Oh wait.
Projection from a dishonest historical illiterate. If there is another “burnt offering of Persians” it will be down to the actions of the Iranian regime and/or its allies.
And the fervor of the apocalyptic die hards in said regime for burnt offerings of Persian lives exceeds even those by your caricature of Graham and your caricature of Huxley put together.
Frankly that probably plus your own bloodlust for Americans and Jews to die.
I’d say you should hang in there, but I would be tempted to add you can do it from one of your Mullah idols’ cranes.