Summer Alpine Climbing
Route Risk AssessmentA structured planning tool for rating objective hazards, checking your readiness, and deciding — deliberately — before you commit to a route. Before you start
Fill this out at the planning stageThis worksheet is designed to be completed while you are still rested and rational — before the mountain, the weather, and your own ego start negotiating with you. It walks you through the objective hazards you can't control, the readiness factors you can, the decision traps that quietly seed accidents, and the turnaround criteria you commit to now. It structures your judgement; it does not replace it. Most controls are dropdowns, so the sheet fills in a couple of minutes. Free text is reserved for the few places where judgement genuinely needs words. How it works1
In Part A you rate each objective hazard with a likelihood × consequence matrix. Each hazard gets an automatic risk level — Low, Moderate, High, or Extreme. 2
Parts B–D check your readiness, surface your decision traps, and lock in your turnaround criteria. 3
Part E reads it all back. The worst single hazard drives the result — never an average — and readiness and decision-trap flags can raise it further or stop the trip outright. Your privacy. Everything you enter stays on this device, in your browser only — it is never uploaded or shared. Turn saving off with the switch at the top, and use Clear on a shared computer when you finish.
Contents
The assessmentSix parts, filled in order. The dots fill in as you start each one. 00
The plan Route & conditionsThe objective, its difficulty, and the forecast you're working from. Alpine grade
Max altitude
Printed reference
How the risk rating worksFor each objective hazard you pick two things from dropdowns — how likely it is to affect you, and how bad it would be if it did. The grid gives that hazard's risk level. Likelihood
1 · Rare — would be surprising 2 · Unlikely 3 · Possible — could well happen 4 · Likely 5 · Almost certain Consequence
1 · Negligible 2 · Minor — injury, self-managed 3 · Moderate — injury needing descent/assistance 4 · Serious — major injury, rescue required 5 · Severe / fatal
Low
Moderate
High
Extreme
Read this before you use it. On serious alpine ground the consequence is rarely below Moderate — a slip in the wrong place is fatal wherever you are on the route. Most honest ratings land amber or worse, and that's correct: alpine climbing is a high-consequence activity. The matrix isn't there to reassure you. It's there to make you rate each hazard deliberately, compare them, and see which one is driving the decision. An Extreme cell is a stop sign, not a number to be balanced against a good forecast elsewhere.
A
Outside your control Objective hazardsYou can't remove these — only manage your exposure through timing and route choice. Rate each with the matrix above, then note how you'll reduce it. Weather window
Temperature, wind, precipitation, cloud and visibility across your time on route. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Thunderstorm / convective risk
Storm probability and timing; where you'll be when storms typically build — afternoon exposure on ridges and summits is the summer red line. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Rockfall
Overnight freeze (or lack of it), warming through the day, degrading permafrost, couloirs, and parties above. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Snow & avalanche conditions
Recent snowfall, wind-loading, wet-snow instability as the day warms, cornices, and lingering early-season avalanche risk. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Glacier hazards
Crevasses (open and hidden), snow-bridge strength, the bergschrund crossing, and overhead seracs — unmitigable except by minimising time beneath them. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Terrain, exposure & route condition
Sustained exposure, committing sections with no easy retreat, and the current state of the rock or ice. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Altitude & acclimatisation
Summit height against your acclimatisation, and altitude-illness risk. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— Timing & daylight margin
Realistic — not optimistic — route time against available daylight, plus crowding and queues at cruxes and abseils that could wreck your schedule. Likelihood
Consequence
Risk
— B
Within your control ReadinessThese are entirely yours. Be honest — self-assessment is where accidents are quietly seeded. Any single Insufficient means you are not ready for this route today. Technical competence vs the grade The hardest move on route, climbed recently in the mountains, with margin.
Core alpine skills, current Crevasse rescue, ice-axe arrest, retreat/abseiling, belay building. When did you last actually practise crevasse rescue?
Fitness & current condition Endurance for the full day; any illness, injury or accumulated fatigue.
Acclimatisation for the altitude
Equipment & emergency kit Appropriate to route and conditions, with redundancy; bivvy, first aid, spare headtorch, repair kit.
Navigation, route knowledge & conditions intel Topo/GPS, and recent reports — hut warden, recent ascents.
Party competence & pace Everyone up to the route; planned to the slowest member, not the fittest.
Comms & emergency plan Plan lodged with someone; comms and rescue cover in place.
C
Usually invisible Decision trapsThe objective hazards rarely kill on their own — decisions do. These biases are strongest exactly when you're tired, invested and near the goal. Flag them now, rested and honest, so you'll recognise them later. Summit fever Is wanting it distorting how you read the conditions? Sunk cost Can you walk away from effort already spent? "We've come this far" is not a reason. External deadlines Flights, work, a closing window pushing you up the hill. Groupthink / expert halo Continuing because no one wants to call it, or deferring uncritically to the "strongest" climber. Complacency Treating a serious route as routine because it's familiar or you've succeeded before. Fear mis-read Ignoring a legitimate gut warning, or letting anxiety override sound judgement. Fatigue & judgement How will you notice when your thinking has gone downhill? Ego / validation Whose approval are you climbing for? D
Commit now Turnaround criteriaSet these while rested and rational, before the mountain and your ego start negotiating. A turnaround time only works if it's decided in advance and treated as non-negotiable. Hard turnaround time
By (time)
We must be at
…regardless of how close the summit is. Conditions red lines Any one of these means turn around. Tick those that apply, and add your own.
E
The call Overall indication & decisionThis reads off the parts above. The worst single hazard drives it — you do not average. Highest hazard (Part A) — Readiness insufficient 0 Decision traps flagged 0 Decision rule
Overall risk indication Read automatically from the rule above.
Awaiting inputs
Rate your objective hazards in Part A, then complete Parts B and C. Your overall indication will appear here.
Decision
This worksheet structures your judgement — it does not replace it, and a green result is never a guarantee. The mountain will be there another day. The strongest alpinists aren't the ones who never turn around — they're the ones who are best at it. 
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