Post Rain Sending and Injuries

I originally started this blog to write about two main things: traveling and climbing. So far I've written A LOT about the former and not so much about climbing. I was excited to write new posts about my climbing adventures/stories, but unfortunately I'm currently on the mend from a shoulder injury. More about that at the end of this post. It's been raining. A lot.

Between all the inclement weather and everybody's differing schedules, it's been a while since we got together for an outdoor climb. The sun happened to be out of the past couple days, so we were hopeful that the basalt boulders would be dry enough to climb on. The temperature was mid 40's to 50's -- pretty decent sending temps.

What we didn't take into consideration was the saturated dirt path leading up to and around the boulders. That's fine, we'll deal with our dirty street shoes that picked up mud along the way. What we REALLY didn't expect, was the herd of cows that had recently trekked across the entire area, leaving thousands of deep hoof prints filled with rainwater.

One wrong step and... bam. Gross.

It didn't stop my friends from sending though (after cleaning off his shoes of course, gotta keep the boulder clean!) We had a couple hours of sun left, and no plans to stay after dark in the cold, so they got to climbing. I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I stuck to photography duty.

My friend was committed to getting through the muddier portion of the traverse, working past the low overhang area with only a small metolius pad to save him from a muddy fall:

My other friend watched from above while waiting to down climb:

As soon as the sun had set, the weather cooled quickly. My friend is in a tank top, but this is the guy who can walk around in short sleeves in the wintertime...

After a few more sends we packed up as it got dark. With no headlamps, we only had the lingering sunlight and our phones to light the way. Normally it would be an easy walk out, but none of us wanted to risk spraining an ankle in the holes. I tried to avoid them and stepped into a spot I was confident was firm enough to walk by. I was wrong. My whole shoe sank into it. Almost couldn't pull my foot out!

But we made it back to our cars, nasty shoes and all, hoping for better weather soon.

Which leads into this shoulder injury. With the weather being the way it was the past couple months, I've been at the gym too much. I went at a problem too hard one too many times a couple months ago. I had been feeling super hyped and confident that week, sending all of my indoor projects and feeling a lot stronger than before. After that day, my shoulder, specifically the rotator cuff, felt awful for a couple days. The pain then subsided and I got back into climbing. It had been cold and rainy, so when the new year came, I went to explore a whole bunch of climbing gyms I've never been to before.

I've been told my biggest setback in climbing is my lack of commitment, so I went into the new year striving to coax myself into making those committing moves I was so scared of. I suppose I went a bit too far, and now the pain has slowly returned with a vengeance. I'm trying to take it easy now, resting and doing some PT. It upsetting though, because my home gym had just set some pretty fun problems that I want to send, and the weather is finally starting to warm up too. Sigh.

Miss the injury free days. Feels like I've been consistently hurt in some way or another over the past few months. Whether it's shoulders, fingers, feet, wrists... phew. Gotta take it easy. My friends as well, everybody has been nursing their own share of injuries. But how can you stop when climbing is so addicting?

Anyway. For those in good health, climb on!

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Post Rain Sending and Injuries