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34 days Posted on 11.18.2011 by greg.kuchyt

34 days; though it sounds like the name of the next horror movie hit of the year, it is actually the number of days I have been on crutches.

Bummer

By now, mostly everyone has seen me on crutches and the general story has circulated amongst the climbing community. I’ve learned a lot through this experience and I would like to share those things in writing, but I feel you have to walk before you talk so I will cover it briefly for posterity.

A month ago, I took a 30′ fall on the route Shitface at The Near Trapps in the Gunks. Without getting too deeply into the quagmire of an analysis, I  will say this much. I had completed the crux and was transitioning from an awkward section of PG/R terrain into a secure stance below a moderate section of R climbing. Making a weird off-balance move I cam off, and in the process my right-side barn-doored away from the wall and when I came onto the rope and came into the wall, only my left heel hit. So all the force remaining in the fall went into my heel, resulting in a fracture of the medial posterior calcaneus. There is nothing extraordinary about the fracture and it is supposed to heal fine with no complications.

Needless to say I have been doing a lot of thinking about the whole situation. However, that thought process isn’t really appropriate for public consumption though for a bunch of reasons. Mainly I just don’t want to relive the experience. I spent the first week agonizingly going over every detail leading up to the fall trying to find answers or…something. It won’t help anything, so it’s wasted energy. Instead, I’ve been keeping my head down low, taking my medicine, and trying to take care of myself as much as possible in order to bounce back as quickly as possible. Along the way, I’ve learned some things…but more on that later.