In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
I doubt that there's any particular root cause for all these accidents or that this year is any different to last in terms of "risk per climber".
The number of accidents per year will always fluctuate around an average for a given decade and since humans are brilliant at pattern recognition we always seem to fuss about each variation and cluster. I suspect on balance that your readers were as cautions or reckless this year as last.
A statistical cluster of accidents doesn't have to reflect anything - the test is whether the trend is maintained or continues or whether it reverts back to the mean. In fact to suggest that there may be a differing human element in this year's accidents without checking the validity (as above) might be considered offensive. To do so presumes, in general terms, that this years victims were more reckless, inexperienced, and made more mistakes than those in other years, without any real grounds for this presumption.
Flipping a coin can result in 10 heads in a row but this doesn't mean the coin is weighted!
So you are correct that
"Climbing and mountaineering are dangerous, you can die or suffer serious injuries out there. Make sure you have the skills to reduce the risk, understand the dangers that you might face, plan ahead and don't let ambition cloud good judgement" but considering the context of the article I'm less thrilled to read
"The message is clear" the message is probably made no more clear by the accidents this year than by those last year.
Given the context of the article you risk making this years victims poster boys for your statement when they may have been skilled, comprehended the dangers they might face, planned ahead and tempered their ambition with judgement and only had the misfortune to be part of a statistically insignificant cluster. Why use them specifically as a point of reference?
This need to attribute causes (and I'm straying from your article now which only gently implies criticism) to climbing accidents is something that bugs me about climbing culture. When someone is struck by lightning we don't usually consider this a mistake or failing on their part (unless there's evidence that they were waving a conducting fishing rod over their head or somesuch) when discussing a climbing accident why do we assume a cause so often without waiting for supporting evidence? Not that people are directly offensive, just that we presuppose a mistake rather than misfortune...