All Shook Up

a melodramatic and laborious recounting of a scary fall


I faced death today.

Sam Perkins onsighting 5.12c

My alarm went off at 5:45 a.m., at almost the same instant that Russell knocked on my door to wake me.

Today would be my introduction to Box Canyon, a limestone amphitheater hemmed in by 300 foot walls. I was eager to do my first multi-pitch climb. [a "pitch" is one rope length. routes longer than one pitch must be split up, with belays happening in the middle of the wall.]

I had practiced anchor building and rope management all winter, and I was ready.

The trip to the crag was hilarious as usual, and the gloomy weather brightened up for us as we approached the Lemhi Mountains. We quickly split up into pairs and headed for the walls. Russ and I picked the easiest route, and he took the first lead.

A half hour later, I was 10 feet from the canyon lip. The last pitch was my lead, and I had really enjoyed it. I sank my left hand into a deep pocket and clipped a carabiner to the last bolt. I pulled up slack to clip the rope in, and right before I managed to do so, the rock in my left hand broke, tossing me into empty space.

no warning. I plunged southward and the only thought I could muster was "BAD". I tripped over the rope in midair*, and I slowly turned until my dorky white helmet was pointing straight down.

I slammed into the wall 35 feet away from that broken hold, curled up like an upside-down egg.

The Splat Calculator tells me that I was airborne for 1.5 seconds, traveling at 33 miles per hour when I reached the end of the rope. Useful information I guess, but those numbers just don't describe the ground rush.

When I say that I faced death, I don't mean that I almost died. Although this was the single most rattling experience of my life, the system worked as advertised. The anchors held, the rope stretched to soften the impact, and even though it was a long, messy fall, I finished the route and touched down with nothing more than light bruises and a sore ankle.

I got a taste of what it would be like to "fall into another life," in the words of Philippe Petit, a man who made art out of gravity. Petit was a tightrope walker, but so much more than the circus variety. His most famous rope spanned the gap between the WTC towers in 1974. Over a thousand feet in the air. His was a different kind of terror, composed entirely of anticipation. He was still in control. Actually falling is another kind of fear entirely: so much more potent, yet strangely cathartic.

This kind of thing doesn't happen very often.

That's little comfort.

The guilty hold

The fact is, the risks that led to my fall were not uncommon. I do this all of the time. I should have done more to keep the rope away from my feet, but even if i hadn't gotten entangled, the hit would have been just as brutal. The big difference between this route and Hanging Humor is that clipping holds don't often break on well-traveled routes.

Down in the meadow, I leaned the seat back in my new SUV and watched Sam and Riley finish their route through the open sunroof. I had bought this truck so I could climb more. Now I was reconsidering whether or not the risks were worth the pleasure.

***

Later on, Sam flaked the rope below a 5.12c route called "The Thread". He was going to try and onsight it, the climber's analogue of sightreading "Flight of the Bumblebee" having never heard it.

My shutter finger itched.

Getting a decent climbing photo almost always means getting up off the ground. There was a relatively easy route right next to the Thread, called Lemhi Winds. It was well within my physical limits, and would serve as a pretty good vantage point.

My throbbing ankle tried to remind me why the leader's side of the rope was called "the sharp end". I balked, waffled, and finally tied in. I onsighted my route -something like sightreading "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star"- and fired off about 20 frames.

Those pictures didn't turn out, but leading Lemhi Winds was probably the best thing I could have done to get over the shakes. To answer the question of whether the joy is worth the risk, I call on the events that allowed me to buy that SUV. I was driving a very fuel efficient Honda, but one day on a quick trip to the store, a girl in a pickup plowed into the back of it without slowing down at all. In an instant, that car was done.

The similarities between the two events helped me to realize that risk is everywhere, and to stop climbing because I could fall and skin my knee would be absolutely spineless.

I get called crazy about once a day. I resent that.






*edit: after some discussion with Sam, i'm pretty sure I didn't tangle in the rope. i rotated backwards because my feet came off last.