One Slip

Like many other trips, this one was planned only days before. Like most trips, the main goal was to summit peaks. We planned to climb five 12,000 foot peaks in the La Sal mountains including the ever elusive Mount Peale. Watching the weather reports I was thinking positively. The reports were claiming it would be breezy, but otherwise nice. I was fired up, ready to climb. We had spent some time in the days prior to leaving getting things ready, packing our bags and such, so that we could head out as soon as I got back from work on Friday. When the time came, we were ready to go.

I'd driven to Moab three times prior to this trip, so I knew where I was going. It was fun to be in my Jeep for this one though. I had thoughts about gas prices. I thought about how I would respond if anyone called me on taking my Jeep to Moab during this time of high fuel prices. I would say what I thought: "Gas prices are not going down, and my Jeep needs to see Moab at least once. That means now is the time to do it."

We stopped at Subway in downtown Moab and headed straight for the hills. I drove the La Sal Loop Road like I had done a year and a half earlier. Into Gold Basin where we set up a camp. We passed many campers down lower on the road, in the brushy foothills of the mountains, and thought that surely there would be tons of people in the nicer basins of the mountains. As it turns out there was no one to be found higher up. Once on the road into Gold Basin, there was a lot more mud on the road, and occasional snow patches. We hoped to get to the end of the road before blocked by snow. We didn't make it. We were well into the basin though, so the trip was not botched. By this time, the sun was down and ambient light was fading. We quickly set up our tent on the side of the road and got everything prepared for the night. Then we watched MASH on Jason's laptop while eating some dinner. We didn't linger too long before going to bed, as we knew that we needed to get up early in the morning. The night's sleep was less than sound.

The "breezy" conditions that the National Weather Service had predicted turned out to be breezy with hurricane force gusts. A few minutes of silence and then the deafening flap of the tent's fly. Then the tent was on top of us. The poles were bending over on us. Then the wind would stop and we were back to normal. The night was spent getting as many seconds of sleep at a time we could, hoping the wind would die before morning. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

As much as I wanted to climb the mountains, I knew that the wind would be even stronger on the barren ridges of the high peaks than down in the forests of Gold Basin. So we called the hike, and drove off.

It was 7 or 8 in the morning and we had a day to fill suddenly. Driving down from the mountians we saw how serene everything was. It was a bluebird day, not a cloud in the sky, and the trees were still around us. But we knew that higher up the winds were brutal, so all temptations to go back up and try our luck were stifled.

We thought of a few areas we wanted to see. Most of them included rock climbing, but we didn't bring any of our technical gear because the La Sals didn't require any. We had wanted to see the Fischer Towers for a long time though, so we decided to head down there to check it out. One day we would return to climb there perhaps, and this would be a good way to scout ahead so we knew what to expect.

It was a ways down a winding highway, following the southern shore of the Colorado River. We saw Castle Valley with the crowning Castleton Tower which we had visited on our first trip to Moab. Then we passed Onion Creek which we had driven down on our second trip, mistakenly thinking we were headed to the Fischer Towers. We finally reached the turnoff and went toward the towers. It didn't take long before we hit the parking area which had a great overlook of the whole area. We could see a lot of the towers from there, such as the Titan, but we wanted to hike through them anyway. We didn't expect to go too far. A mile was nothing to us. We wound through some small washes and over some sandstone ridges. At a certain point, I saw a pinnacle that looked climbable to me. We passed by it, but it stuck in my mind. We didn't go far before turning around, and I went straight toward the pinnacle.

I scouted my route from the ground. Good solid holds down low, all the way to the short overhang that I could easily climb over. I didn't think, I went. My hands were on top within 10 seconds, feeling around. There was nothing to grab. Smooth, mostly featureless sandstone. The small features that were there crumbled as soon as they were grabbed. Hindsight is screaming at me, turn back, this is no good. I had the skill to get on top though, and I did it. I stood up, victorious. I tossed my camera to Jason to grab a few shots of me on top. My legs started to shake. I realized the full gravity of my situation. I didn't know how to get down. I hadn't thought about this at all. It was a terrible idea to climb up here. How do I usually get down from things like this? Rappel? I can't do that. I need to down climb. But there's no way. I've never done a down climb where there are no handholds. Compounding that, there were no footholds that were easy to get to over the overhang. I couldn't stay up forever though, so I went. Without thinking. I ended up off to the right of where I came up, removing any chance of my finding a foothold. My downclimb was doomed from the start. At a point there was nothing I could do. I knew I was going to fall. My hands were desperately groping the rock in front of me, and my feet dangling helplessly in air. I could not successfully down climb, and I wasn't in a position where I could climb back up. In fact, the only thing keeping me up there in that precarious position was the friction of my jeans against the rock. And as soon as I moved, I knew it was over. I called for a watchful spot from Jason, and tried anyway. It was less than an instant before I was in mid air.

I can't remember seeing anything while falling. I remember what I saw before I fell and after I landed, but not mid fall. I don't think I closed my eyes though. The feeling of free falling was something new to me. I had fallen before while connected to a rope, knowing I would be caught softly by my harness and belayer. But the feeling of being in mid air, rushing to the ground, the next thing I touched would be rock and dirt... it was a thick feeling. I was simply so caught up in the feeling of the moment, I forgot to see.

Jason grabbed me out of mid air. He didn't completely break my fall, that's for sure, but I am certain his action prevented more serious injury, perhaps paralysis, maybe death.

The landing was hard, it knocked the wind out of me. I moaned in pain, and noticed Jason did too. A flood of emotions about how bad I've messed myself up, to how bad I've messed Jason up came through my mind. Then I decided I should focus on breathing again. It took minutes to get back to normal breathing. We sat there for 5 or 10 minutes, recovering. It wasn't long before we were both craving ibuprofin and made our way back to the car. Jason wrapped up my back with some Ace bandages, and we pulled some ice out of the cooler to put on my back. Then we started the long drive home.

I spent the next week and a half hoping I would recover quickly, and debating whether or not I should get it checked out. Tuesday night I decided it was time to get to a doctor and have some X rays taken. I went to After Hours Medical on Wednesday, and they took care of me. They said it was just muscle strain and prescribed me some muscle relaxers. That was very relieving, and I thought I could maybe get back to hiking and biking soon.

Thursday I got a call from another doctor there who said they had a radiologist look at my X rays, and he found compression fractures on T10, T11, and T12. I was referred to a specialist, and I will see him this coming Tuesday.

We will see how it goes from here, but I do not believe the breaks are bad. The only symptom is pain, and the fractures were not found by the first round of doctors. When I know more, I will post again.

Be sure to read my analysis in the next blog: Lessons Learned