They weren't going out there to get hurt." Murphy said the perspective of extreme athletes is very different from our own. "We look at a risky situation and know that if we were in that situation, we would be out of control," he said. "But from the athletes' perspective, they have a lot of control, and there are a lot of things that they do to minimize risk." Statistically, mountain climbing is not as risky as people think it is. Our perceived risk of the sport leaves the majority of us at the bottom of the mountain.