woodsxc wrote:billisfree wrote:1993, 129 summitted and eight died (a ratio of 16:1); in 1996, 98 summitted and 15 died (a ratio of 6½:1)
That's a misleading statistic... the correct value to use is the number of deaths divided by the number who SERIOSLY ATTEMPTED the summit.
If one used the number that actually summited, one is getting a skewed figure.
Imagine... 200 people attempt, one makes it and one dies. That's a 50% fatality rate.
The correct value in this case should be odds of making it (0.5%)
and the odds of dying (0.5%)
Not at all.
We're not looking at percent of people who died, but rather the ratio of successful summit bids to deaths. To get the death rate of climbers on Everest, your method would be correct, but that's not what Patrick was talking about. He's comparing the number of people who died to the number that reach the highest point on earth.
Actually, this is the only type of fact I could find. There are no facts (I think) on the amount of attempts vs. deaths. Sorry about that.
patb