It is fitting that this is my first rec.climbing trip report since the whole weekend was all about firsts...First trip to Lover's Leap.  First 5.9 trad lead.  (Traveler's Buttress) First fall on gear.  First bail from a route.  First climbing injury.  First time on crutches.  And now I'm sitting really still trying to avoid aggravating my injury to the point where I get to have my first surgery too.

Our plan for the day was to climb the first pitch of Traveler's Buttress (5.9) and then move over to Corrugation Corner (5.7).  My partner for the weekend and I have been climbing together in the gym for a few years and have done some sport stuff, but this was our first trad outing together.  We had both started leading trad earlier this year and were finally at a point where we felt comfortable to head out without more experienced supervision.  I've been looking to push my trad level a little bit closer to my sport level, so I volunteered to lead the first pitch.

The climbing felt pretty moderate, but since it was exposed and easily protectable, I put in too much gear and was running low by the time I reached the crux roof/flake just before the squeeze chimney leading to the Main Ledge.  I pulled the first big roof without much of a problem and placed a questionable nut in a seam.  The next roof/flake looked really tough.  I decided not to trust the dubious nut.  So, although I was trying to ration gear, I stuck my little blue Alien in just above the nut before continuing.  (I consider this divine intervention #1.)  I moved onto the flake.  It was fat and slopey, and, after all of the beautiful dikes on the way up, the feet were now just friction and counterpressure.  Since I was lying-back when my foot buttered off, I was ejected like a spring.  I had just pulled the big roof, so the fall (~20 ft.?) was kind of fun...all air.  Or so I thought.

As I dangled and recombobulated I noticed that the back of my calf hurt a bit.  There were some scratches on it.  Since I don't remember hitting anything, I figure that I must have scraped it along a ledge jutting out from the right.  Strangely, the fall left me feeling eerily calm.  I pulled over the big roof again and built an anchor to bring my partner up so that I would have a full set of armor to re-attack that flake and the squeeze.  At this point I noticed a 3 bolt anchor about 20 feet to the right along a dike just below the roof. (divine intervention #2)  Although I was willing to finish the pitch, we decided that maybe it would be for the best to bail and go find a less committing climb that we would be sure to finish without additional falls and before dark. I lowered my partner over the roof and he traversed to the bolts. Then I did interesting down-climb over that roof.  I kept moving my high piece down as I with me.  Just as my feet touched down on the underside of the roof one of my pieces popped.  I doubled up for that move, so I didn't fall, but it was really unnerving.  All I had to do was clean the gear on the way to the bolts and we could be on our way to our next project.  At this point we had a minor snafu owing to the fact that my partner is about 8" taller than I am.  With a bit more freaky A0 trickery, I was at the bolts.  We had lunch on the ledge by the bolts then rapped off.

Probably a couple of hours had passed since the fall at that point, and my leg was really starting to bruise and swell.  It was somewhat stiff and painful, but I still figured I'd be up for 5.6 climbing.  When we got back to the main trail, I decided to go with my wimpiest of urges and head back to the car for some Advil. (divine intervention #3)  By the time we got to the car, I was having a tough time walking and was in enough pain to call the rest of the trip off.

I could barely walk by the time we got to Vacaville (~2.5 hours down the road) and was in agony by the time I got home.  My leg had doubled in size!  Apparently I had ruptured an artery behind my knee when I fell.  I waited until the next day to go to the ER (potentially a big mistake).  I was worried that they would be annoyed that I was bothering them with a non-emergency.  On the contrary, they seemed quite concerned.  The orthopedic surgeon on duty actually left the OR to check me out.  She put a needle deep into my calf muscle to determine how much internal pressure the swelling was causing.  I was borderline for something called "compartment syndrome" where the swelling gets so bad that blood can get out of your calf and your foot and calf muscle suffocate causing permanent damage.  The only treatment for this is immediate surgery to remove the excess fluid from inside the calf muscle.  So, I've been sitting really still and pleading w/ my leg to start shrinking.  It's been a few days now and it looks like I'm out of danger for developing compartment syndrome.  I guess I should be grateful that it wasn't more serious, but the immobility is a huge bummer.

Hopefully this rather embarrassing TR has satisfied some morbid curiosities.  Mainly I opted to de-lurk and post it because the incident taught me a couple of things and reiterated a couple of old lessons.  First of all, I've been pretty amazed by the power of adrenaline to completely mask the pain of the fall and also to shore up my confidence to jump back on a section of climbing that in retrospect was probably over my head.  If I'm ever in a similar situation, I'll remember to factor in adrenaline and/or shock in all subsequent decision making processes.

Second, swelling gets worse not better with time and continued use.  It frightens me that, had the climb we intended to do next been closer, I probably would have jumped on it and been in deep doo-doo when my leg reached the excruciating, non-functional stage.  Also, I felt pressure to climb because I was worried about being a wuss and ruining my friend's weekend.  This self-imposed pressure was just plain stupidity since he's a good friend who would not want me to climb injured.  Had I continued to climb, I almost certainly would have gotten to add ‘first surgery' to my list of firsts for the weekend.

Third, an appendage swelling to twice its original size constitutes and emergency.

Fourth, I ordered some Screamers yesterday to use the next time I have to do a difficult move with only dicey (the original nut) or delicate (the blue Alien) protection available.  I was probably lucky this time because the fall was at the end of the pitch, thus the fall factor was pretty low.

Finally, I was pushing my trad level and it decided to push back.

I am grateful for repeated good luck or "divine  interventions" which kept a bad situation from being worse.  However, I don't question where my luck was when I fell in the first place because I did not put in enough time at the lower grades to be comfortable with that 5.9 move.  I do wish that the fates would have been kind enough to make me fall a few inches further away from whatever it was that thrashed my leg.  But, they were kind enough to let me know that things could have been much worse!

       From:
             mmichel@itsa.ucsf.edu (Melissa)