My experience accords with AKSAR's data and references, although you need to define "climber" with some precision. I can count on one hand the number of "climber involved in SAR operations - against over at least two hundred involving hikers or picnickers, etc.

All too often a hiker wanders into technical terrain, but lacks the equipment and training to cope with the situation. Example: A graduate student had just aced his PhD oral exam (the last significant hurdle between him and the degree). He went for a hike that afternoon, following an increasingly vague trail until he was in highly exposed terrain, whereupon he slipped and fell 300 feet to his death. Very nasty recovery operation....

One of our most dependable groups, in terms of generating rescue operations, were picnickers who over imbibed, all too often then wandering off steep cliffs.

The most technical peak in our area generated exactly one rescue operation in the twenty-nine years I was in Southern Arizona. if SAR were to depend upon climbers for action, our group would have disbanded out of sheer boredom.