Eldorado Canyon wrote: The accident data is released annually to the American Alpine Club for inclusion in Accidents in North American Mountaineering. An addendum this year is to briefly summarize the 2000-2010 incidents for any broad conclusions we can draw. They are our best medium. We always try to be open, especially with anything that can prevent future accidents. ... We have many public safety and natural resource concerns. First and foremost, we use education wherever possible to ensure that people do the right thing, even when nobody's watching. Education is why we have a presence on this forum in the first place. We want everyone to be informed, enjoy our park, and go home safe and happy. We also want the park to be here in its present state for future generations. These ideals are mutually inclusive, or at least that is the assumption we operate under when we go to work each day. ... - The Eldo Rangers
I extract these reasons:
1. Reporting and analysis for the community in general to interpret, the ANAM.
Agreed. It's an applicable medium to educate. As can be online forum groups and classroom discussion.
Whereas various press releases to the media seem to fail at this when it comes to mountaineering and climbing more than they succeed. Which is generally not the fault of the media, some times. These messages usually come from designated agency information officers and relaying is certainly not an easy task to offer a quick statement aimed at a general populace especially when a more thorough analysis warrants.
2. "We have many public safety and natural resource concerns."
This seems a generalized statement. What exactly are you offering here as examples of dangers to the general public and the natural resources?
Climbers go into the park with the acceptance of risk. Those who do not intend on technical climbing are warned by signage.
Is it really the place of land management to relay what is considered "safe" for a climber as a matter of public safety? Some instances can be helpful, notably things such as: distances, anchors, trail access, route condition reporting, and routes that see a high frequency of accident occurrence. A great deal of which are addressed in guidebooks, mentors, and sites like this.
The subjective opinion that addresses the manner of climbing or risk acceptance that climbers make for themselves that may have led to an accident, I don't think this is the place for land management. Well regarded climbers can have a bad day just the same as the novice out trad climbing on their first real rock outing.
I think if you surveyed the mtn rescue teams along the front range, you'll find they all are having higher call-outs than ever, with more of them being serious situations than they used to be. Population increases, advancement in specialized performance equipment, and improved technology on access and help notification probably lend to this. And, honestly, I cannot find a correlation of experience or preparedness levels as to the amount of call-outs that occur; people have bad days when out recreating.
Things I see:
A. No matter how hard anyone tries, we can't save the world from its own bad decisions; we can't fix stupid. Though I do wish people would stop being so hell-bent on lowering their partner off the end of the rope, or mis-communicating the anchor drop.
B. Analyses do serve an educational purpose if done appropriately. If these just come from the land manager along with a lecture, climbers that have a bad day may become conditioned to not request help when they need it or make the situation worse for an injured partner; such as in the fear of charge for rescue. However, if we can better assist in situational awareness and assessment, some good can come in learning about an accident.
Dale puts our decision making in a very clear light (though his focus is in avy) that we are good at visualizing objective hazard, but we suck at risk assessment. How can we make better decisions if we willfully won't properly assess our situation? What can we do to offer better tools at assessment -- lessons learned.
C. Our focus on climbing accidents needs to change. Accidents happen in the mountains and will continue to happen. Acceptable risk does not mean "no risk" and the cliffs and mountains will never be "safe." I think climbers are in a different light than the general public that has not willingly accepted risk. So the act of risk acceptance should place little emphasis on climbers as being the focus of a safety mandate.
I think the earlier posts have a basis coming from this mindset that a park like this is supposed to be safe. Meaning, land management analyzes why these accidents happen and that they come from a manner of free expression, then try to "fix this safety problem" so it won't happen to anyone else. Okay, how? Take away free expression.
What are possible observations & objectives?
High general visitation that stresses the Park's resources
High percentage of those visitors are climbers (??)
We use education wherever possible to ensure that people do the right thing (??)
We want everyone to be informed, enjoy our park, and go home safe and happy. (??)
We also want the park to be here in its present state for future generations. (!!)
Big cliffs with frequency of climbers being visible
Climbing accidents that occur are highly visible to the Park
When climbing accidents occur, access to the Park becomes restricted (??)
Hypothesis Offered:
Our hypothesis is that we are no more or less dangerous than any trad area, but it may appear that way because we have better information and high climbing visitation.I would offer that you need to come up with a revised hypothesis that can be better tested as falsifiable as what is offered doesn't allow. It seems as if a conclusion is being proposed as the hypothesis; don't feel the need to prove, test and gather data to try and disprove -- falsifiability provides more substantive process.
As well, the proposed statement doesn't address the reasoning provided for collecting data that seems to be related to technical climbing accidents:
"We have many public safety and natural resource concerns."
A more relevant and testable hypothesis to land management concerns:
"Over-stressing Park resources and endangering the general public directly results from technical climbing accidents."
Title it to imply a testing process, something like:
"On the Association of Park Resources and General Public Safety to Technical Climbing Accidents."
The trouble with any of this as Mike brought forward is bias; which I think is why falsifiability allows you to collect & analyze, then draw better conclusions. Sometimes the conclusions brought out end up being things nobody would have thought about; possibly better ways to perform risk assessment, park management, and/or emergency response.
With the user volume of that park, you all should be able to collect and analyze a significant amount of information that benefits all of us.