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Comment by ianferrel | Hacker News Reader

10% is the wrong statistic. According to the article, for every 10 people who reach the summit, 1 person dies in the attempt. So, already, that's somewhat less than 1/10, because not every person who dies does so after reaching the summit.

But it also doesn't count the many people who start climbing the mountain but turn around before the summit and make it down alive.

The true statistic is likely much less than 10%.

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This page (http://www.8000ers.com/cms/everest-general-info-185.html) shows 4102 attempts to reach the top with 216 deaths last year. That puts it at about 5% of climbs end in death.

However, only about 2700 individuals climbed -- which puts the deaths / "uniques" back up to 8%. And if you assume that the sherpas die less frequently than do the tourists, 10% doesn't seem too far off.

Interestingly, K2 seems to be much more difficult with a much higher fatality rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-thousander

Yes, K2 is is much more technically demanding climb (See the Black Pyramid, and basically any of the other less popular routes) and more unpredictable (falling seracs above the Bottleneck killed several climbers in 2008). It's usually only attempted by very skilled mountaineers. You won't find the same sort of climbing tour groups like operate on Everest - which is part of the reason why Everest, though the tallest, doesn't seem to be the pinnacle of mountaineering.

I recently met one of the 9 Americans to ever summit K2 where for every four people who have reached the summit, one has died trying. He quit after his friend didn't make it home.

That death total is not last year, that's all time. 216 dead people in a year would be the end of mountaineering.

The attempt numbers you quote, 4102 attempts by 2700 individuals, was for 2008. A year with one fatality.

Those odds are quite different.

Sorry, yes, both of those numbers are for all time.

However, the rate stands. It's not correct, according to the source on 8000ers, that 4000 people climb it in a year. Indeed, the list shows that number is for all time as well.

We're both wrong. It's 4000 people all time who have reached the summit. There is no number on the site indicating the number of attempts.

Although those who don't climb Everest have a 100% mortality rate

(Perhaps 99.9999% if you include the Dalai Lama)

Historically, it's closer to 94%. In rough numbers, there have been around 100 billion humans [1], and only around 6 billion of them are left, even if you count the Dalai Lama.

[1]: http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedo...

Well, 94% mortality and 6% for which there is insufficient data to draw a conclusion. We'll have to wait a while to be sure if any of them are immortal.

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