How often has this happened to you? It’s Monday morning and you’re at work. One of your co-workers comes over and strikes up a conversation about the weekend. When you launch into a quick story about your weekend climbing/skiing/backpacking/paddling trip, your co-worker raises a concerned eyebrow and declares, “That sounds dangerous.”
When talking about outdoor recreation, it doesn’t take long for the topic of risk to arise. In the public mind, sports like climbing and backcountry skiing are notoriously “risky,” but I’ve even heard people argue that hiking on trails is a dangerous pursuit. While it’s true that when things go wrong in the wilderness, problems can compound quickly (and this sometimes leads to death), risk exists everywhere, even in the frontcountry. Driving is dangerous, eating can be fatal, even walking down stairs can end in tragedy. The difference is that we know how to manage these risks. People rarely worry about falling down the stairs because it’s just not that likely to happen. The same is true with choking. These events have a low probability of happening. With driving, you can lessen the consequences of an accident by wearing a seatbelt and driving cars that are designed to take the brunt of an impact. Risk in the outdoors can be managed the same way. The first two questions to address are: (1) how likely is that something will go wrong and (2) what are the consequences? Both questions are equally important.
Consequence
If something goes wrong, what will the outcomes be? If you fall on a particular section of trail, are you just going to to scrape your leg, or is it possible that you’ll end up careening off a cliff? When you know what the consequences are, you can be prepare to lessen the risk. Think of climbing, where you tie into a system and use a belayer to stop a fall because the consequence of falling is severe injury. You wouldn’t rope up to walk down the sidewalk because the consequence of falling is incredibly low — so what if you skin your knee?
Likelihood
What is the chance that something will go wrong? Is the trail dry and flat, or is it covered in ice? Glacier travel is a great example of the spectrum this question addresses. If it’s a wet glacier — one that’s covered in snow — you may choose to rope up, but leave your crampons off. The likelihood of slipping is low, while the probability of falling into a crevasse you didn’t see has increased.
The opposite is true on a dry glacier (one without snow) where a rope team may not do you much good if you fall, but wearing crampons will give you better traction. Knowing what actions may cause problems is an important step in assessing risk. Go out an read some accident reports; there’s no safer way to learn how things can go wrong and what you can do to prevent a similar accident.
Putting it Together
Managing risk comes down to combing the answers to these two questions. If something is low consequence and low likelihood — it’s probably a risk worth taking. On the other hand, realizing that a problem is probably going to happen and that the consequence are high may lead you to turn around for the day.
It’s in the middle that things get more complicated. This is where you’re really working to manage risk. Taking extra precautions, like roping up or checking the snowpack or taking a class that teaches you how to recognize ways that things go wrong, are good ways to lower the consequences of an accident or the probability that something will happen. In the end, it may come down to your instincts and there’s nothing wrong with calling it a day when you’re just not sure how things might shake out.