Summary

Description

Lisa and I had a not-too-hurried morning getting ready. We left Durham -- with our traditional Breugger's bagels in hand -- around 10am. Lisa drove. We ate bagels, and read out loud on the drive. Got up to the Pilot parking lot around noon. Hit the bathrooms then hit the trail down to the cliffs.

We were thinking about setting up on something easy (5.7-ish) to warm up on, but there were a number of people around the popular routes so we headed on down to the billiard corner to climb 8-Ball. Lisa went on down the gully, and I setup the anchor. I'm out of practice. It took me a while since I wanted to make sure everything was safe and down correctly. Eventually had it worked out using a pink tricam, red Camalot, and the big blue piece of webbing around a big flake, all pulled together with a dynamically equalized piece of webbing over the edge with a couple of locking 'biners for the rope to run through.

Lisa was first up. First couple tries didn't amount to much. Her third try, she cranked up through the initial crux roof moves and got up to the flat face. When she tried to high step and rock over on her left leg, she felt and heard something in her knee pop. I lowered her down, and she was scared and in a bit of pain. She calmed down, and we assessed that her leg was still attached. It hurt a lot to bend her knee with weight on it, but she still had good range of motion, and it was sore in a specific area. She was defintely done with climbing for the day. (Big fat bummer, especially since it was her first climb.) She took a couple of ibuprofen and said she could belay for me.

I worked on the first 3-4 moves of 8-Ball for a while. Kept falling off or backing off. I just don't have the upper body strength (or technique) for overhanging moves. I eventually made about 4 moves and got a little higher, but I could keep going. As a came off, I ripped open a flapper on my left hand at the base of my thumb. It hurt and bled for a while. I put a bandaid on it, but I was done with 8-Ball. I was pretty discouraged with myself for not being able to pull the moves any better.

We had a bite to eat and then traded ropes with a couple who had setup a rope on Snooker. Lisa belayed for me. I climbed up the easy line to the left (about 5.7), then I tackled the harder line straight up the middle. It gets pretty blank there. I worked it for a while, hangdogging a bunch and slowly making my way up. Eventually stopped and had Lisa lower me since I was all out of grip and pull. I felt better for having made it up something and giving a better accounting of myself.

We packed up and headed up the trail. Lisa and I had each brought a couple of trekking poles, and it's a good thing since they made a huge difference for Lisa hiking out. She was moving at about half speed since she couldn't step and lift with her left leg so all of her steps were forward with her right, bring the left to the right, repeat. It was slow, but we made it to the car. She broke out the instant ice pack we keep in the car and iced her knee while I drove home.

It was great weather and good to get out, but Lisa's injury really sucks. Hopefully, it's not too serious, and we'll be back out once she's healed. Next time, we'll definitely start with something easier -- and not overhanging -- to warm up on.

[Update: Lisa went to the doctor and found that she only strained her knee -- the tendon that connects one part of the quad -- and that as long as she takes care of it in the short term and doesn't re-injure it, it'll heal just fine.]