Rock climbing without ropes comes with risks and rewards. This climber set out to crunch the numbers

In The NOCO

A few weeks back, Boulder Reporting Lab published an unusual article.

The writer, Simon Testa, told his story using data and statistics to wrestle with the risk associated with a type of rock climbing called scrambling.

Simon lives in Boulder, and scrambling is his favorite hobby. He even wrote a scrambling guidebook. He climbs up huge rock walls without climbing ropes. He has made hundreds of ascents without ropes over the past decade.

But scrambling is also risky. After two tragic accidents last year, Simon dug into records of 16 people who died while scrambling on the Flatirons – those towering rock formations outside Boulder.

Simon told In the NoCo’s Brad Turner about what he discovered in the data, and how he approaches scrambling differently now.

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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.