Monday, November 07, 2011

I Paid $40 to Enter a Comp and All I Got Was This Lousy Finger Injury

Haha, well the title pretty much explains itself.

Saturday, after I finished coaching during the youth portion of the ABS competition in Riverside, I decided to participate in the adult comp. The setting at Hangar 18 was great, and all the competitors had a great time on the technical and powerful problems. Unfortunately, at about seven or eight problems in (still warming up), I decided to try a pretty hard, steep, crimp line, and on my second try I felt my right pinky buckle, heard an audible pop, and came flying off the wall. I taped it up and climbed for the rest of the comp, but using only three fingers on my right hand I had difficulty actually finishing a lot boulder problems. I guess this is what I get for coming out of eight years of "retirement" from comps, haha.

It seems to be a partial tear of my A2 pulley in my right pinky finger. I'm icing at night and hoping that it heals up quickly and that I didn't hose myself for the rest of the winter (Buttermilks) season. I can still climb, and was able to participate in the new boulder set at the LA Rockreation yesterday, but my right hand is probably only at about 80%. This coupled with the fact that it's been precipitating pretty hard the last couple of days and they may close the upper gate at Black Mountain this week, make me pretty happy about the fact that I finally sent Ex-Patriot last Saturday.

It's a 2.5 mile hike from that second gate on the Black Mt road to the OK Corral, and then another 45 minute hike from there to the Where the Wild Things Are boulder, so assuming the gate is closed we'll be splitting our time between there, The Republic, lower on the mountain, and  Bishop for the rest of the season.

Stay tuned for more exciting posts with actual climbing media in the near future.

In the meantime, you can tune into Blochead's final installment in their "5,000 Miles Series" here: http://blocheadclimbing.blogspot.com/2011/11/5000-miles-part-4-joes-valley.html

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