Well I do have a "clue." Fatality rates for walking are imperfect but some studies have put them around ~37/billion kilometers walked [0]. For Ski lifts, it is 0.93 per billion kilometers. That's over an order magnitude worse for walking.

Now most people don't walk on mountains, so it's not a direct comparison. Walking on sidewalk is often a well paved, but with the risk of cars. Cars usually aren't on mountains, but on the other hand the conditions are oft very inclined with ice/snow, with difficult walking that can lend towards inducing casualties. My educated guess are these tradeoffs aren't enough to overcome the order of magnitude higher rate found in walking vs ski lift in our imperfect comparison across studies.

The honest answer is the word "probably" was used to denote the evidence points my mind in that direction, in a way that appears reasonable at least to me and probably many readers here. But if I want to use the bad faith accusatory tone you've presented, then I'd just say I said it to annoy persons such as yourself for my personal amusement.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221414051....