is trad climbing more dangerous than sport?

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

sport you are less likely to have protection failure be the cause of an accident. you are more likely to be lowered off your rope and dropped.   tard you are more likely to have gear failure as cause of accident. if climbing single pitch trad you will have the same lowering risk as spurt. If multi pitch you will add rappelling risk. there is more multi pitch tard than multi pitch spurt. there is more choss on multi pitch tard than spurt so with lowering and rappelling risks being similar the loose rock factor and gear failure  factors elevate tard to a higher risk level. So much winning.

Haven't you already been warned about your juvenile use of that "T" word? That's high school talk and very offensive.

Uhhhh, I'm pretty sure that a simple glance at ANAM would answer this question.

Check this out:

https://rockandice.com/climbing-accidents/30-years-of-climbing-accident-data-an-investigative-report/

Incompetent climbing is the most dangerous form of climbing 

Tradibanwrote:

You're forgetting the human factor. Trad climbers tend to be better climbers and make less mistakes than sport climbers. 

The life flight flying into the Creek every week would like to disagree with you. 

Somebody find me an accident report where rope drag pulled out the lowest 3 bolts of a sport pitch. Or where a falling sport leader ripped 4 bolts in a row and decked.

Now can we get on to discussing whether ice climbing is safer than sport climbing?

I consider bolt clipping like a day off compared to trad. Not ragging on Sport, but clipping a bolt is often far less strenuous than finding a stance and location for a trad gear placement. I will also note that Trad requires the dual thought process of 1) climbing and 2) placements, that you don't have with Sport. In Sport I can give nearly 100% of my focus on the climbing moves becuase i know there is a pre predetermined pro location ahead.....I think that helps make it safer.

Gunkiemikewrote:

Somebody find me an accident report where rope drag pulled out the lowest 3 bolts of a sport pitch. Or where a falling sport leader ripped 4 bolts in a row and decked.

Now can we get on to discussing whether ice climbing is safer than sport climbing?

Yeah, I'd like to know how many total fatalities have come from bolts pulling. I can think of maaaaybe two off the top of my head-- there was a fatal accident in Europe a few years ago (after some bolt non-fatal failures at the RRG), and I think that someone died at Indian Creek decades ago toproping off a single bolt anchor, but I'm not sure about either.

C Limenskiwrote:

genuinely curious what people think.

10/10

Heh - Somebody find me an accident report where a bicyclist died from not wearing a harness restraint. Or where someone running a marathon died because they left their water flotation vest at home. ;)

I know. I know. Those are hardly related venues while sport and trad are.

Still, in a nod to Mark’s comment, it is going to be pretty hard to compare the relative danger between a competent sport climber and competent trad climber. Of course, alpinists and mountaineers are in their own class.

In short, and to be as inflammatory as possible (hey, it’s 2020), the question posed for this thread misleads folks into a doomed effort at finding an answer. 

Albert Bwrote:

The life flight flying into the Creek every week would like to disagree with you. 

The Creek isn't "trad".

Tradibanwrote:

The Creek isn't "trad”

Oops, forgot. 

Some good points out there.

I'd add that an important difference is that most trad placements are new placements and haven't been tested, until you take/fall on it. Depending on your style, this may only happen a few times a year. At least for me, I may take half a dozen fall in a season on my gear. Then I sometimes take on stuff to test it, and do "aid climbing" on easy climbs just for fun. That's good to teach yourself good placements, but in the end each of those placements are removed and next time you climb it'll be on brand new placements.

For most sport climbs that have been up and see any sort of traffic, pretty much every bolt has been weighted & fallen on a few times, thus weight-tested and have held. This has limits of course - e.g. as the gear ages, rust/wear might be more of a concern.

But that fact is an extra layer of safety for sport climbs IMO. If your risk assessment considers how old a line of bolt is/quality of maintenance in the area, I'd say that fact alone makes sport significantly safer...

C Limenskiwrote:

is climbing with gear more dangerous than sport climbing?

In theory, no. In reality, yes. Trad climbing is more dangerous than sport climbing because poorly placed gear pulls far more often than bolts. On a route that protects well, the danger in trad climbing is directly related to the climber’s decision making. 

One way to look at it: is trad climbing more dangerous than gym climbing (I mean leading at the gym)?

Is sport climbing more dangerous than gym climbing?  If so, why?  Is it all those pulled bolts outside that are causing injuries? One difference is in lowering at gym (very straightforward) versus the threading then lower or rap at sport climbs not equipped with clips.  While that unfortunately gets a number of people, it's certainly not a "random" risk--I myself am not too worried about it (or maybe I am worried about it, but am very aware of the issue).  Is it runouts on sport climbs?  If so, are those really even sport climbs, or perhaps what is sometimes referred to as bolted trad?

It would be interesting to get people's views who have done a lot of sport and trad (I would say I have, not like a pro climber or real climbing bum, but pretty active for 25 years).  IMO, there's really no comparison.  If you think sport is as dangerous or more dangerous than trad, you're either sticking to very well protected trad routes, likely below your ability, or doing unusually dangerous "sport routes (are they really sport then), or something weird is going on.  This is just my perspective and experience.  As others have pointed out, it's not easy to "prove" this one way or the other as we don't know the denominator when comparing numbers of accidents, and the two groups overlap in part, but not completely -- there may be a lot more relative noobs getting into sport than trad.

https://rockandice.com/climbing-accidents/30-years-of-climbing-accident-data-an-investigative-report/

This article gives some perspective. 

The way the question was asked was only about the climbing style. Which means the other factors should be held constant in order to make a comparison. So if the same climber climbs a protectable route with bolts, is he more likely to get injured climbing trad style or sport style? 

Julie Vernonwrote:

https://rockandice.com/climbing-accidents/30-years-of-climbing-accident-data-an-investigative-report/

This article gives some perspective. 

Thanks!  I thought about looking for that then I went "meh"

One thing, I think it misses the human factor (jkjk).  But seriously, it unknown how many people are sport and trad climbing as the frequency of reported accidents are covered and not a proportion of accidents per discipline (hence the "meh")

Gumby Kingwrote:

Thanks!  I thought about looking for that then I went "meh"

One thing, I think it misses the human factor (jkjk).  But seriously, it unknown how many people are sport and trad climbing as the frequency of reported accidents are covered and not a proportion of accidents per discipline (hence the "meh")

I would assume that way more people are sport climbing than trad climbing, so that makes sport climbing even safer relative to the amount of people doing it.