This year, the AAC’s Accidents Editor Pete Takeda received a 30% increase in climbing related accident reports. In this, our annual Climbing Accident Trends episode, we look at the patterns of climbing accidents that happened in 2025, and discuss what these patterns reveal, and what all climbers can learn from them.
From the human factors that influence accidents across disciplines—and the emerging prevalence of top-rope soloing accidents; the under-appreciated danger of getting your knee stuck in an inversion offwidth; the hidden dangers of a stick clip—to the continued high incidence of lowering accidents, we dive into some of the biggest trends and most poignant examples of accidents to learn from in this year's book, Accidents in North American Climbing 2026.
