A new climbing adventure...

Geoffroy and Violaine are here, and as they are very sporty, I was happy to go running to Central Park and climbing at the Gunks with them.

Everything went well for a week, everyone was in great shape and running 10k (racing with Geoffroy of course) was kind of a piece of cake. I was climbing well at the gym too, and, being motivated by my climbs of the previous week, I felt strong enough to lead most of the routes with Geoffroy and Violaine following.

This time the climbing session did not finish with a happy ending. I broke my talus bone and need to immobilize my ankle for quite a while. The podiatrist tells me I'm very lucky, it could have been much worse. The talus bone (astragalus) is a very important bone in the ankle, but the fracture is small. Still, I am going to need a cast for 4-6 weeks and then another month of physiotherapy. Well, climbing season is probably over, but the good news is that the fracture is not even painful...

Injury at the gunks

So, here is how it happened (click the image above for the full album): we decided to climb moonlight, 5.6, which is within my abilities. I led the first pitch and felt good, using my brand new #3 cam as my first placement. I belayed Geof and Violaine to the GT ledge and we surveyed the face to find the line for pitch 2. We found the line and I climbed easy terrain, well protected and not very vertical. Higher up was an overhang, with an old piton and what was described as the "crux" section in the guidebook. So I placed a #1.5 friend and climbed the overhang. Pfff, pretty hard for 5.6! Only later did I realize that I was offroute, probably in the 5.10 route called "Erect Direction". The problem happened on top of the overhang: there was a second one and only a minuscule crack to place protection. I placed a #00 metolius cam and could see that it hardly fitted in the thin crack. I hesitated for some time, thought about climbing up, or down, and finally got pumped and decided to rest on the cam. This was a big mistake. Geoffroy belayed well, there was no slack, but as soon as I put my weight on the 00 cam, it popped off and I was flying in the air. I got stopped by the #1.5 cam and my ankle hit a small ledge but I did not feel much pain. Violaine says it was a 10m fall. I have no idea, everything happened so quickly!

The #00 cam:


From http://www.billandcori.com/gunks/climb.htm
Two pictures of moonlight. The first one is a close up:

Geoffroy lowered me to the GT ledge, where I discovered my ankle was badly swollen. He was kind and confident enough to climb and retrieve the gear on the easy part of the pitch;and then we rappelled down to the ground, myself on my knees and on the left foot. Once on the ground I realized that I could not put my foot on the ground at all...

Several hours later in the ER of St Vincent's midtown's hospital the emergency doctor rold me I had a small fracture....

I amnow discovering the joy of using crutches and spending days with my leg elevated... I will probably have more time to write on this blog if anything interesting happens while I'm healing...