My first official climbing injury

This weekend was not one of my better weekends. It started out ok, rain was forecasted for Saturday, so I stayed home and packed. However the forecast was wrong, it didn't rain a drop. I was a bit disappointed for not going climbing (Don invited me to Talking Headwall), but I was very anxious to go to Governor Stable on Sunday and work on some of my projects.

Sunday morning I picked up Tre' from his house, and made the 3-hour drive to Governor Stable. The weather was just perfect: sunny, dry, and cool. Perfect sending weather. We warmed up a little bit on some V0-V1s, I made a few attempt on some harder problems, but didn't get very far. We then moved to Moby Dick, a really cool problem, but a bit soft at V6. Personally I think there were no moves harder than a V5 on the problem, it was just long and pumpy. The last time I tried it, the rock was wet, and the boulder was covered in snow, but I was just three move away from topping out. With the condition much better this time, I thought I had a very high chance of ticking my first above-V4 problem.

So I eagerly started on Moby Dick. It was a long traverse fairly low to the ground, the crashpad had to be constantly moved along with the climber to keep the climber from landing on the ground. Instead of just dragging the crashpad beneath me as I traversed, Tre' was leepfrogging the two crashpads we have, so he could stand on one of them the whole time and keep his shoes clean. Well on my third or fourth try, my right hand slipped off a crimper unexpectedly while I was trying to catch a sloper with my left hand. As the result instead of just falling straight down, I fell backwards away from the rock. I landed on the crashpad, but the momentum kept pushing me backwards. Since the crashpad was placed fairly close to the wall, I was going to fall on my back outside the crashpad, so instinctively I stuck my hands out behind me to brake the fall. My right palm struck a rock on the ground, and the pain made my head spin. I sat there for a while, until the pain dulled a little. After figuring out the pain was in the meaty part of my palm, I decided that it was probably just a bruise, no bone damage. I forgot my Ibuprofen in my other backpack, so I sucked up the pain and went back to work on Moby Dick. But since I couldn't close my fist without pain, my grip strength was reduced, and after a while my palm swelled up. There was no way I could finish Moby Dick like that, and really I shouldn't be climbing with that hand at all. So I decided to stop climbing and just watch and spot Tre' for the rest of the day.

To say I was not angry would be lying. I was pretty mad. I didn't drive 3 hours (then 3 hours back home) just to do a couple of warm up problems. To have a rare winter weekend with perfect climbing weather ruined by some minor injury that was totally preventable with good spotting was pretty upsetting.

Interestingly, this time I injured myself, and that one time I almost injured myself, both occurred when I had spotters. When I boulder by myself I tend to be a lot more cautious, a lot more aware of my landings, and just generally take much less risks. When I have spotters I tend to commit to harder moves more easily, and totally trust my spotters in spotting me correctly. I think I may have to think this over again, and maybe be a little more wary of what my spotter is doing.

Moby's Mantle (V2)

Maryland Weather, I curse you!

I had last Friday off as part of my Compressed Work Schedule, and Monday was MLK Day, so it was a rare 4-day weekend for me. Unfortunately the weather sucked, so the weekend ended up being pretty uneventful.

Friday I went to Great Falls with Tre'. It was in the 50s and really foggy in the morning, which meant the rock was really slimy. We went to Aid Box and set up three routes: Diagonal, Lost Arrow, and PV Wall. Aid Box was a special place for me, because that was where I climbed outdoors for the first time. It was July of 2003, and I flailed for 10 minutes on a 30-foot 5.5, and couldn't get up a 5.7 without my belayer hauling on the other end of the rope. Ahhhhh, good times.

I also went to the REI in Rockville to pick up an order and returned two of my Aliens due to the recent CCH recall.

Saturday it was pouring rain as forecasted. I stayed home, installed the new toe strap for my snowboard binding that I got from REI, tuned the edge of my board using the new edge tuner I got from REI, and waxed it. After the snow storm in December, we haven't had any new snow, and the weather has constantly been above 50 degrees. I doubt I'll get any use out of my snowboard before I leave Maryland, which really sucks. I was waxing my board because I was expecting to put it away for the season, and feeling glad that I will be leaving soon. The crappy weather in Maryland was really starting to make me mad.

Sunday was sunny, cold, but very windy. I stayed home again, trying to get some things organized in my room, did laundry, watched some TV, and generally just being very unproductive. But tomorrow... tomorrow I will go to Great Falls again.

Monday I woke up early to drive up to GF. Met with Jerry, Jason, and Carlene in the parking lot. John, Lily, and Gil showed up later. We dropped a rope on almost every route in Aid Box, and since it was colder and drier than Friday, I had a much better time working on PV Wall. But I think I'm still a long way before I can climb that route clean. It was a pretty good day of climbing, the weather was perfect for me, and it was good to see a few people I haven't climbed with in a while, and meet a couple new climbers to DC.

Bouldering at Coopers - Jan 7-8

Saturday: Drove 4.5 hours to Coopers on my own. There was more snow than I expected from the weather forecast, and the sky was overcast. The gate at Coopers was closed, so it was another hour of hike in to get to the boulders. It was already 1:30 pm by the time I unfolded the crashpad and started working on Woody's Arete (V4). It was cold and windy, but the friction was very good, so after 4 or 5 tries I was able to finally get this problem. Sweeet!! Then I walked over to Helicopter (V5) and worked on the crux move pulling out from the overhang. I figured out a good sequence, but it's pretty powerful, and right at the limit of my reach. I tried a few times to link up all the moves from the beginning, but always fell right at the crux. Maybe tomorrow.


Doing the Helicopter (V5)

Sunday: I spent the night camped at Chestnut Creek campground on the other side of I-68, I was the only person in the campground. After catching up on some much needed sleep, I drove over to Coopers and made the long hike in. I decided to get on Helicopter right away, hoping to link up all the moves. Unfortunately I still couldn't latch the crux move. I took a break around 11 am, to wait for some climbers from the DCORC group. Alyce and David showed up, but the rest of the climbers bailed. They warmed up on the Warmup Boulders, while I gave Helicopter a few more unsuccessful tries. We played around on four other problems, by 3 pm we were all pretty beat. We made the long hike back, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways.

Working on Helicopter (V5)

New Years weekend: an adventure in driving and bushwhacking - Dec 30-Jan 1

Friday: met up with Hung then went to Franklin. The weather was cloudy and a little chilly, but not terrible. Warmed up on Shipwrecked (5.9+); finally redpointed Super Amazing Sea Monkeys (5.10d); got totally spanked trying to lead Walk the Plank (5.11a), and after Hung led it, still got spanked on a toprope. Hung led Dynosaurus (5.12a), I toproped it with lots of tension from the other end. Hung then toproped the unknown route to the left of Dynosaurus. That night Hung drove us to Pilot Mountain, NC. All the campgrounds were closed for the night, so we pulled over in a hiking trail parking lot, Hung slept in the car, and I slept on top of the covered picnic table. Around 1 am a Sheriff came by to check us out and asked for our IDs, but he left us alone after that.

Saturday (New Years Eve): Woke up, bought a jug of water at the gas station, and drove to Sauratown Mountain. We parked outside the Mountain Top Youth Camp, and hiked along the road to the top of the mountain looking for the rumored sport climbing there. There were no guidebooks covering the area, except some vague directions printed out from the web. We followed every trail we came across, bushwhacked to every cliff we saw, but we never found a single bolt. After half a day of hiking and bushwhacking, we finally gave up and drove a little further to Moore's Wall, where we climbed on some sweet bouldering problems. That night we decided to drive to Summersville Lake, WV - a place where we can find the routes. Most of the campgrounds were closed for the season, we were the only ones camping at Rogers.

Sunday (New Years Day): Woke up to a beautiful red sunrise over the New River Gorge. Drove to Summersville Lake, where we were the only climbers there the whole day. We didn't have a guidebook, so we climbed a few routes we know, and a few we didn't know. I onsighted She Got the Bosch, I got Drilled (5.10a) as a warm up, flashed BSIAGE (5.10b) after Hung led it, toproped the three-bolt Short Pirouette (5.10d, hard for short people), and hangdogged Satisfaction Guaranteed (5.11b). I took a short fall over the roof on Satisfaction Guaranteed, and swang under the roof. It was freaky. After that I was done leading for the day. Hung wanted to try Mutiny (5.11c), but it was wet from the water run off, so he got on Under the Milkway (5.11d), which was really sequency and technical. I tried toprope it, but only got about half way up before the sun started to dip below the horizon. Hung went up on toprope and cleaned it, then we began the long drive home. I got in my bed at 2 am Monday morning.