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)
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.
posted by Boer @ 1/22/2006
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