One Journey Through
A World of Stories
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
- Joseph Campbell
Accident Report
Daniel seemed confident as I passed him our rack of gear, and I was confident too - confident that we were off-route, half way up a 300-foot wall in The Narrows of Fremont Canyon WY. Regardless, I knew Daniel was right: up, was the only way out. ​
Daniel and I had both been to Fremont Canyon in years passed, but this was our first trip to The Narrows - a sweet wall just off the beaten path, with a few 5.10 multipitch trad routes. We were psyched! So psyched, that even getting lost briefly on the approach could do nothing to dampen our spirits.
So, there we were, having just climbed Hang Loosely (a GREAT 2-pitch 5.10c) in good form, we decided to rap back in for another route. We wandered around the base of the cliff, trying to locate the finger crack and roof features that were landmarks for the next route, but, as you do when the only way out is up, you try to see what you want to see.
We found a line that looked like it would go, and I started up it. After 150-feet of climbing, and with no bolted anchor in sight, I told Daniel I was building an anchor. I belayed him up to the broken ledge I had stopped at, and without much discussion, he racked-up and started off: questing.
So, after Daniel finished the pitch and began to belay me up, I was sweating bullets. I stripped my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist: bad idea. The sweatshirt covered my belay loops and kept getting in the way as i tried to clean and rerack the gear Daniel had place on the pitch. Inevitably, one piece ended up only clipped to the sweatshirt, and then it was falling.
I watched the cam fall back to the ledge I had started the pitch on, and knew that I had to go down and get it, so I called for slack, and down-climbed back to the dropped piece of gear. Angry with myself for wasting time with my clumsiness, I started back up the climb once more. I moved quickly since I had just climbed this section only minutes before.
As I weighted my right foot, a fist sized block blew-out from underneath it, and I was falling. As usual with free fall, it was over before i knew it. When I stopped swinging and bashing into the wall, I hurt and there was blood, but I knew it wasn’t that serious. Daniel had been belaying me from above, so I only fell about 10 vertical feet and I knew that there hadn’t been any bone-crunching impacts.
After the rock had fallen from under my foot, my body had accelerated down to hit a small precipice. This left a fast-growing bruise and open lacerations on my right thigh. Then, I had swung right, about 20 feet spinning and bashing into the wall, as I came under Daniel’s belay.
“Are you ok?” Daniel called. “Yeah”, was my feeble response as I cataloged my injuries, and palpated my bloody elbow. As I became more certain that I would be able to finish climbing out of the canyon, I was relieved and then angry.
I was relieved because since we had rappelled into the canyon, there was no “walk off”, so if I hadn’t been able to climb back out, a serious rescue might have been in order. I was angry at myself for falling. I was angry that we had climbed the wrong route. Angry that I had dropped the cam. Angry and hot and sweaty and careless, and I had payed the price of my carelessness by taking a tumble and ending the climbing trip.
After a few moments of anger melting into self-pity, I swung back over to the route, and gingerly climbed the remaining 100’ of the pitch. Once back at the rim of the canyon, I stripped off my shredded pants and looked in awe at my gouged thigh.
“‘Tis but a flesh wound”, I said, but that flesh wound sure made driving home uncomfortable!