Alex Honnold Climbing In Greenland #alexhonnold #nationalgeographicuk #rockclimbing

Watch Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold from Sunday 4th February at 9pm, on National Geographic UK.

[craigbritton]

Any serious and aware climber/ mountaineer is different in that they accept that their sport can kill them.
And at the cutting edge; it regularly does; even as it is much safer than fifty to one hundred years ago.
Before WWII there were three to five thousand climbers in The US; and about 30-50 died each year; the same number die now with 6-7 million people going climbing each year. ( Many just in gyms)
Into the 1970s; one in ten going to The Himalayas and Karakoram Ranges died. ( I counted all deaths and number of climbers in The American Alpine Club Journal )
Now with guided expeditions it is more like one in a hundred/two hundred; but the cutting edge/ no supplemental O2; new routes/ Alpine style my non comprehensive numbers are between one in thirty to one in forty.