Friday, September 29, 2017

Rare Rock Fall Fatality At Yosemite's El Capitan

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According to the NPS, there are an average of 80 rockfall events per year on El Capitan. Although there have been plenty of climbing incidents on El Capitan over the years, there have only been 5 previous climber incidents I can find reported since 1974 that were caused by rockfall. Can't find any good information on the number of climbers over that time frame but would roughly estimate an average of 10,000 per year (Devil's Tower in Wyoming has 5,000 per year in a much shorter climb and season duration).  So that would work out to 6 incidents for 430,000 climbers or a 1 in 70,000 chance. The only area comparable to Yosemite in Colorado is Eldorado Canyon near Boulder which has a higher rate of incidents.

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