9 Surprising Patterns in 210 Climbing Accidents Last Year

Nothing teaches you a lesson like making a mistake yourself. The next best thing, however, is reading about other climbers’ mistakes in Accidents in North American Climbing (ANAC), published annually by the American Alpine Club. Learning from the accidents of others is a valuable way to improve your systems, dial your safety practices, and avoid complacency.

Before diving into the accidents, the 2025 ANAC opens with valuable insights on making your next rappel safer. But the most fascinating story this year investigates the role of human error in accidents. Climber and researcher Dr. Valerie Karr searched for themes in ANACs from 2005 through 2024. In her surveying, she found the six most common ways human error leads to accidents. Climbing will also be publishing a story specifically related to Dr. Karr’s insights, as well as a few more stories penned by ANAC long-time editor Pete Takeda soon.

ANAC 2025 (Volume 13, No. 3, Issue 78) is now available for pre-order, with the official release in early October. Here are nine surprising takeaways from the report.

1. 2024 and 2023 were the highest fatality years since the 1950s in the United States.

Since the American Alpine Club first started soliciting accident reports some 75 years ago, between 10 and 43 climber deaths occurred per year. From 2022 to 2023, fatalities surged by 22% to a total of 51. In 2024, 49 total fatalities occurred, the second highest number since the AAC started keeping records.

It was also a high year for climber injuries in the U.S., with 174 reported injuries, 15% more than 2023. This was also the second highest injury count in the U.S. since AAC records begin. Total accidents were also high, with 190 reported in the U.S., the second highest number since the 1950s.

While the reported incident volume is always higher in the U.S., our neighbors to the north had a more moderate year in 2024. The 2025 ANAC documents 20 total accidents from Canada (down 35% from 2023), 25 injuries (down 32%), and nine fatalities (up 23%) in 2024.

2. Before you blame “gym to crag” on rising incident rates, consider who got into more accidents.

Some climbers like to grumble about novice climbers who don’t know what they’re doing, whether they’re new to the sport or making the transition from gym to crag. But in 2024, expert climbers sustained far more accidents than beginners. While the experience level of a large volume of climbers involved in accidents remains unknown, we do know that 33 expert climbers got into accidents last year, while only six beginners and two intermediate climbers had accidents.

3. By far, California saw the most accidents and injuries reported in 2024.

ANAC uses geographic districts that include Canadian provinces (e.g., Alberta), Canadian territories (e.g. the Yukon and Northwest), U.S. regions that group together states with lower data thresholds (e.g., the Southeast), and U.S. states that are major climbing destinations (e.g., Colorado).

Unsurprisingly, California gets its own geographic district—and sees a lot of action. In the last calendar year, climbers in California reported by far the most accidents and injuries of any geographic district. In 2024, 40 climbing accidents occurred in California, followed by Colorado (28) and Washington (26). Thirty-four of those accidents involved injuries; runner-up districts for injuries across North America include the U.S. Northeast (26), and the state of Washington (24).

This brings California’s total accident count since 1951 to 1,798—second only to Washington, which has 2,134 reported accidents in the books.

4. But California did not see the highest fatality rate of 2024.

In 2024, Washington and Colorado both experienced 11 fatalities, the most of any other district. California accidents led to 10 deaths. This brings both Washington and California to a total of 378 reported climbing fatalities since 1951. The Colorado climbing community has experienced 295 deaths to date.

5. More accidents struck on the ascent than the descent.

Rappelling gets a bad, well, rap. But of all the accidents reported across North America in 2024, 100 occurred while climbers were ascending. Compare that with 46 accidents sustained during the descent. This trend is on par with historical data. (Note that with 46 of the 210 accidents, it was unknown whether problems arose on the way up or down, and 11 accidents also occurred on neither the ascent or descent).

6. The most common injury of 2024? Lower extremity fractures.

Those pesky ledges, nasty ground falls, and more hazards of the hobby led to 30 lower extremity fractures among climbers last year. Historically, lower extremity fracture has ranked ninth in terms of most prevalent injury. But the AAC only began breaking out fractures by location in 2021, and fractures in general have dominated climber-related injuries since the records begin for this datapoint in 1984.

The next most common injuries were hypothermia (17 cases in 2024), and head injuries/traumatic brain injuries (16 incidents in 2024).

7. Alpine climbing involved more accidents than any other discipline.

As usual, alpine climbing/mountaineering led to more accidents than any other type of climbing.

In 2024, 71 accidents occurred on alpine-style climbs. The second most accident-prone discipline of 2024? Trad climbing, with 52 total accidents. Sport climbing comes in third, with 35 accidents last year. Other categories include ice/mixed climbing, big wall climbing, bouldering, toproping, free soloing, and ski mountaineering.

But before you make assumptions about alpine climbing or trad climbing being more dangerous than, say, ice climbing or free soloing, keep in mind that these aren’t accident rates, only accident totals. The higher accident volume might be indicative of the popularity of each discipline. While nine people had accidents free soloing or deep water soloing in 2024, for example, the accident rate might still be quite high considering how few people climb ropeless.

8. A lot of climbers got lost last year.

After falling while rock climbing, the second leading cause of accidents in 2024 was becoming lost or stranded. With a total of 31 accidents involving getting stuck or off track, this is a good reminder to us all to download a navigation app, bring along a satellite comms device, and tell someone where we’re going and when we expect to return. Oh, and brush up on those self-rescue skills!

9. Male climbers got in a lot more accidents than female climbers.

Last year—and historically—men experienced more accidents than women. While this may lead you to draw some conclusions, keep in mind that this data doesn’t take into account the total numbers of men vs. women climbing. That said, 134 accidents involving men, compared to 40 accidents involving women in 2024, represents a pretty big gender gap.

Whether it’s about who’s actually climbing—or something else—we also saw a similar trend in our 2024 Climbers We Lost. Among 38 fatalities in our community, only one person on our list was a woman.