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Does experience make one more or less likely to have an accident?

Original Post
Coz Teplitz · · Watertown, MA · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 215

Hi all:

I'm doing a little research on the role of experience and overlearning on performance. There's lots of information about this in many different fields, but I thought climbing might provide an interesting lens through which to consider the question. To that end, does anyone know of:

1. Pre-existing investigations of climbing accident data that includes experience level
2. Datasets containing such information

I know "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" covers this - I'm looking for additional studies or datasets. There used to be a sign in Eldo with this information, but I can't remember where they got their data and I'm not in Boulder anymore to go look at the sign again. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Can someone else suggest somewhere else to look?

George Bell · · Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 5,050

I know of this web site

listsofjohn.com/Accidents/A…

I think it has accidents not listed in ANAM (from newspaper reports, for example). But I don't know how much it mentions experience level.

cstorms · · North Bend, OR · Joined Mar 2006 · Points: 1,170

experienced climbers probably climb more often than nonexperienced climbers so i think they are probably more prone to an accident for that reason...obviously experienced climbers will make better decisions in general when it comes to climbing... i think it would be illogical to say an experienced climber is more likely to have an accident than a nonexperienced climber.

Coz Teplitz · · Watertown, MA · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 215

cstorms, in reading my original post title (written late last night), I see that I did a poor job. I am not suggesting the experience makes one more likely to have an accident. The hypothesis (which is somewhat substantiated in other research - from aviation, for example) is that doing an activity a lot leads to "overlearning", which causes inattention, complacency, or mindlessness. It is that inattention that would lead to accidents. This hypothesis would then predict that "very experienced" climbers would have more accidents than "somewhat experienced" climbers (with full awareness that those definitions are slippery concepts).

I find this interesting b/c common sense would say that more experience means a climber has seen more different types of situations, leading to fewer accidents. Like I said, there is some evidence suggesting that being "very experienced" leads to accidents (e.g., in the world of aviation). However, as with many things, there is also evidence suggesting the opposite (experience = less accidents). All of this is also, as you pointed out, subject to the shortfalls of correlational studies (e.g., more experienced climbers just climb more. Another confound could be more experienced climbers take more risks).

Anyway, just some food for thought. Thanks, George, for the resource, and if anyone else has some other resources, let me know.

Tom Hanson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 950

Hi Coz,
I fully understand where CStorms was coming from in his statement.
You bring up an interesting subject here.
At one end of the spectrum, we have a beginner, whose lack of experience leads to danger and potential accidents.
At the other end, we have, let's say for the sake of argument, a very experienced climber. This experienced climber will generally have a much greater amount of hours spent climbing and the more time spent climbing increases the odds that he/she will have an accident.
Also, with experience comes a desensitization towards the innate fear that heights imbue upon the civilian population. An advanced climber may be lulled into complacency more readily than a neophyte.

Buff Johnson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2005 · Points: 1,145

Something to ponder, is it that a participant on average is usually out of climbing all-together within the first few years of their experience?

They push their limit in ability to the point of an incident/injury, go tick-listing/peak bagging & get into terrain that fails them, fail in gear & rigging proficiency, or find it too committing to advance.

Wayne Crill · · an Altered State · Joined Jan 2003 · Points: 375

Coz-

this is an interesting subject, and something that I've thought quite a little bit about as it relates to a number of activities I'm involved in. A few thoughts some of which have been alluded to above follow, but my premise would be that more experience = more safety and on average this probably means fewer accidents.

i) to begin with I'm just not buying the "overlearning" hypothesis, can you learn to much? sure the experienced individual might become complacent, see iii) below. More likely, I believe the experienced climber has, by definition, more experience (!) and this can lead to increased safety because the physiological responses necessary to deal with an emergency situation can move away from frontal brain control (conscious and slow) and into more reflexive/reactionary even spinal control (unconscious and fast; an example of this is the requirement of forebrain processing to learn how to walk, however for most of us currently, walking is a reflex controlled in the spine). Concurrently with this movement away from conscious thinking about the physical response to above said unexpected dangerous emergency situation, the experienced climber will have more familiarity (experience) in the psychological realm producing a higher probability of making correct response choices to the situation. And especially if the situation is novel and unfamiliar then the fact that the conscious forebrain is more available for processing the situation (because the physical responses occurring simultaneously are under less forebrain control than for a novice or moderate climber) this produces much more appropriate responses to the situation which should typically mean more safety and fewer accidents (or better accident response).

However . . .

ii) As mentioned above the more experienced climber probably spends more time climbing = more time in dangerous situations. This will increase accidents for the experienced climber in two ways. a) more exposure to 'random' unpredictable objective hazards such as rockfall, lightning or weather and avalanches (sure these are all predictable but . . . .) and b) even though as stated in i) above the more experienced climber responds to dangerous situations more appropriately, with a higher safety margin, than does the less experienced climber, because they climb more and are exposed to more hazards, even though the individual hazard probability is less likely to affect the experienced vs less experienced climber, eventually these low probability events add up (because of increase time exposure)and produce an increased probability of accident for more experienced climbers.

iii) and lastly the least quantifiable aspect is the human nature one, but there is definitely some truth to the above statement that more experienced climbers probably take greater risks . . .

All together though I believe more experience = more safety and most of the time this = fewer accidents, however "individual results may vary".

Tony B · · Around Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 24,665

Hmmm.. Middendorf said he quit aid climbing 'because I wanted to live.'
The jist of this was that it only got more dangerous for him and not more difficult.
So perhaps we can disect the two vectors here and go with this:

1) On any given climb, sort of climb, or in any particular arena, the more expereinced climber is probably safer.
2) The more expeienced climber however, gets themselves into stickier situations.

I have personally cleaned body parts or personal effects off of 2 climbs in my life: Calypso and West Chimney. Both belonged to former beginners.

Then again, I got rescued once about 8 years ago, off of the back of the 1000' 5.6 first flatiron that I presumed to outrun a storm on, but the downclimb on the back was iced over and I couldn't retreat. If I hadn't have known I could do it in 20 minutes, I probably would not have tried it in poor weather. But as it was, they had to toss me a rope to rap off when I had been soloing. So did my experiece get me in trouble? No, my pluckyness did. Now I'm MORE expereicned for that failure and wouldn't try it again. I solo under blue skies only, or one pitch at a time.

slim · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2004 · Points: 1,103

here's my theory.

1) usually a beginner is somewhat afraid, and deoesn't trust the system and his/her own abilities. this kind of leads to less accidents as they tend to be really careful and double check everything. they accept a low level of risk. on the flip side, they often take advice from somebody who 'thinks' they know what they are doing, and don't have the experience or mechananical aptitude to know that it is bullshit. overall this group has somewhat of a medium number of accidents.

2) the moderately experienced climber has climbed enough that they often overestimate their ablity and acceptable risk level. often, the moderately expereinced climber seems to quit double checking everything, and assumes that everything is going to be fine. this group also tends to overestimate their ability to place both an adequte quality of gear and an adequate amount of gear on a traditionally protected pitch. typical accidents involving these folks would be taking a large gear ripping fall on on easily protected 5.9, or lowering their partner off the end of the rope, or rapping off the end of the rope. it seems to me that this group of people have, by far, the most accidents.

3) the very experienced climber tends to have the proper actions hard-wired, and has also had enough friends killed or seriously injured in accidents to have a full understanding of how quickly bad shit can happen. on the other hand, this group will tend to be climbing on routes and/or situtations that have a higher level of risk due to increased objective danger, such as rockfall. also, with the increased level of risk, this group will often have catastrophic accidents, such as rappel anchor failure (kevin bein on the matterhorn, if i remember correctly), or very long injury-inducing falls. i think that this group has a medium number of accidents.

so, in a nutshell, i think the moderately-experienced climber has, by far, the most number of accidents (both gorss and normalized). i would estimate that the gross number of accidents by beginners is more than the number of accidents by very experienced climbers, as there are probably 1000 times as many beginners as very experienced climbers. however, if you normalized it by person-hours performed doing the activity, i would still say that the beginner has more accidents.

Stefanie Van Wychen · · Denver, CO · Joined Mar 2005 · Points: 75

Because experienced climbers do tend to get into riskier situations (although new climbers get into these too, often times without knowing) - then it seems that you have to split accidents up into several categories - for example: those that occur because the climb was R/X or on shady rock, and those that happen because someone didn't tie their knot right, rappel off the end of ropes, or have a piece fail that shouldn't (like the anchor on a climb that has good gear).

I'm not sure I have a solid opinion as to which group has more accidents - we all know Lynn Hill never finished her knot and almost paid the ultimate price for it and plenty of 'experienced' climbers have rapped off the end of ropes or failed to see the danger in traversing a 4th or 5th class ledge with serious exposure and fall potential. Accidents like rapping off the rope don't have much to do with how much time you spend climbing - it shouldn't happen, but it happens often with experienced climbers and unexp. alike......

Wayne Crill · · an Altered State · Joined Jan 2003 · Points: 375

Another interesting aspect of this discussion (well thats relative but you wouldn't be reading this if . . . ) that applies to climbing, base jumping and other activities, is the age old adage: "Just because you didn't die (hurt yourself, someone else, get into an accident, everything worked out fine. . . etc etc) doesn't mean you weren't doing something wrong". Climbing is safe enough now with enough redundancy built into the gear, procedures, etc that a beginner or even moderate climber can "get away" with making very serious errors (either rigging, procedural or judgemental) without realizing they were errors, or that they were making them. I think this mostly effects beginning climbers. but the redundancy or safety of the "security systems used" can easily and accidentally reinforce bad/fatal habits and the participant might not be aware of this problem/concern until something different happens in the chain of events and . . . . they pay the price.

slim · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2004 · Points: 1,103

amen wayne.

John Ross · · Wasatch Front, UT · Joined Oct 2007 · Points: 2,580

Experience does not equal skill.

What are the qualifications for "experience?" Not dying yet?

How many accident reports have you read that said “they were an experienced climber?” But were they really skilled at what they were doing?

Skill and wisdom usually require experience. Experience may require some skill. But one could have a lot of experience doing things wrong and have little or no skill. For instance one might place gear incorrectly, having lived to do it over and over again. Maybe the knots used with all this experience were tied wrong or used in an unsafe way or incorrect situation. There are numerous examples.

Of course being skilled or trained does not make one immune to mistakes or accidents. I've been out with “engineers” who were “book smart” that I would not trust to belay me. On paper they could set up a z-pulley rigging but not on a glacier for crevasse rescue. And just because I can set up a z-pulley doesn't mean I have the skill to use it safely.

Personally, the more experience I gain the more I realize my limitations, how important practiced skills are, and how much more I need to learn and practice.

One of my climbing books (I'll try to find it) talks about surviving the first few years of climbing, when you know just enough to get into dangerous situations, but not enough to get yourself out (there was term for it?). Enough ambition can get you up a lot of climbs or peaks, and into harms way. It takes skill, judgment, and some experience to get up there safely, to know when to turn around, or how to self-rescue you or a partner.

There is a concept of “safe, safer, and safest.” I think each of those has its place in climbing. A storm is approaching and “safe” anchors/belay will have to be good enough. A two piece anchor may be safe, but one more piece would be safer. Add a sling around a giant bomber tree or boulder and it might be “safest” or a two rope system might be “safest” in some circumstances, but overkill in others.

This climbing “experience” we are getting could be considered “cheep thrills” by some, after the expending some effort to learn enough skills to get started. It can be as temporary as a one-time outing, or a life-long pursuit. There must be enough return on investment or we wouldn't be out there in the first place. It is human nature to invest as little as possible for as much return as possible, which can leave one on the short end of skills in favor of maximum experience.

Stefanie Van Wychen · · Denver, CO · Joined Mar 2005 · Points: 75

Very well worded Mr. Ross...............

Coz Teplitz · · Watertown, MA · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 215

Thanks everyone for their thoughts.

As Wayne alluded to, this debate is mirrored in the psych literature. It has been varyingly called automaticity, controlled processing, or mindlessness. The question: is "automation" a good thing b/c it reduces attentional demands (making decisions quickly), or does removing something from conscious control prevent "good" decision-making? There are good arguments and good evidence on both sides of the debate, and to be sure, there is no consensus w/i the academic psych community.

To bring it back to climbing, my personal feeling is to avoid generalization; I tend to focus on the importance of the individual in the process. I, too, can't help but see experience as a good thing toward preventing accidents (provided, of course, you aren't "misperceiving" safety b/c you haven't messed up yet- thanks, Wayne, again). It is left to the individual to maintain focus/attention/mindfulness - and prevent accidents. We can't pay attention to everything at once, but we should avoid doing things "on autopilot". I'm curious about exploring strategies for how to implement this is day-to-day life and in climbing. We'll call it applied psychology - making a psych class more interesting by applying it to climbing...

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

General Climbing
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