First Alpine Fall and an Update

Once again I'm sorry that I haven't posted for a while but I haven't really been able to do much climbing, this is down to 3 main reasons:
1. When we went to the Alps we managed to have another fall, we were coming down a very exposed, (approximately 500m in height) very steep snow/ice slope (roughly 70-80 degrees at a guess) that we had already gone up earlier in the day. However as I'm sure you know, climbing down is a lot harder than climbing up and the sun had been beating down causing the snow to melt slightly, and therefore lose the good firm holding that it had had on the way up. This meant that the snow/ice under my dads feet gave way and he started sliding uncontrollably down the slope and wasn't self arresting, (when we stopped we realised that he had lost his ice axe so he may have lost it as soon as he slipped, this would explain the lack of a self arrest.) We were roped together with him climbing above me, in hindsight this was probably not a good idea and we shouldn't have been roped together at all. As soon as I saw him slip I dived into the self arrest position and dug the pick of my axe as far into the snow as I could in the hope that I would be able to stop him. However as soon as the rope went tight I started getting pulled down the slope with him, still in the self arrest position. There just wasn't enough solid ice to help slow us down. We slid for approximately 200m, for most of which I was convinced we were going to die as there was a large cliff on one side of the slope halfway down. We slid until we hit a pile of rocks level with the top of the cliff but just off to the side. I still don't know if we were both unconscious or just dazed but I certainly do not remember the final bit of the slide or hitting the rocks at all. My dad woke up in a lot of pain and it was easily understandable why as his helmet was completely caved in, he must have hit the rocks head first. As soon as he came round he got to his feet and started staggering around on this very exposed patch of rocks and I had to keep trying to persuade him to sit down until his balance came back. He then realized that he had no idea where we were, where our campsite was, what the campsite looked like or anything. It was fairly obvious that his short term memory had taken a serious bash and I was getting worried because you always hear about how unpredictable head injuries can be. Dad then immediately went back to his army training and was trying to assess the situation in terms of what kit had we lost, how injured were we etc. This was when he realised that he had lost his ice axe, he then proceeded to ask me at least 10 times in a row where it was, completely forgetting that he had just asked me and obviously wouldn't believe me when I told him this. Instead he told me to, "stop being so stupid" and to go and get my axe which had ended up just a couple of metres above me. It was at this point that I realized I couldn't stand on my left leg at all and as soon as I tried I felt a numbness start creeping up my leg. As soon as felt this I knew there was no way I was going to make it down another 200m of steep ice/snow, across a few crevasses, a kilometre walk to the cable car station if it was still open by the time we got there and god knows how far if it wasn't. So I told him we needed to call mountain rescue, this was not greeted with a particularly enthusiastic response but eventually he agreed. As soon as the helicopter arrived the medic gave me a dose of morphine and put my leg in a splint. Getting airlifted was certainly an experience, even more so as I was considered an emergency patient as they had no idea how bad a break it was in my leg. This meant that the helicopter flew off to the hospital as I was being winched up which is a fairly scary procedure! Dangling well over 2 kilometres above the ground on just a thin cable certainly does wake you up! When we got to the hospital I was put on a drip and we were both given a couple of X-rays before we were told that we could go, they gave us a prescription for some painkillers and that was it. It turned out that I had broken my fibula and the bone had actually bent inwards under the force at the break, I've been told that the bone will be bent for the rest of my life but as it is not the main weight bearing bone it shouldn't be too much of an issue. So due to this I had a few months off climbing.
2. As I had the two biggest falls of my life within 3 weeks of each other in the summer holidays it severely knocked my confidence. This meant that I wasn't as enthusiastic about climbing as usual, due to the fact that I was climbing much easier grades and generally not enjoying it as much.
3. As soon as I started to get back into my climbing and started training again, I was training on my fingerboard and whilst doing pull-ups on the small two finger pockets all my fingers except my ring finger on my right hand slipped off. This caused all of my weight to shock load onto the one finger which instantly popped out. Luckily it popped straight back in as well but it has left me with a serious lack of strength, and as I'm still unsure exactly how much damage I have done to it I'm not going to be climbing seriously for quite some time.


So there you have a few reasons why I haven't been out climbing and putting posts up. Unfortunately I've also got exams coming up which will mean that my parents won't let me go climbing at weekends so there not be any more posts till after then.
However my friends and I are planning a trip to Fontainebleau this summer so I will give you an account of that when we get back.

First Leader Fall

My first post for a while so sorry about that! On the 12 July me and dad went up to Tremadog to get some practice on slightly longer routes than the peak district in preperation for our trip to the Alps in August. We decided to start off on Christmas Curry as it's a classic, well known route at our sort of grade, (only HSevere). The first pitch was fairly straight forward but as it was the first bit of climbing for the day it felt harder than it probably was! The second pitch was very comfortable and enjoyable, found a stuck cam near the top of it but after struggling for a bit with it failed to get it out, so decided to carry on up and leave it for dad to struggle with as he followed me up! Dad then followed, taking a slightly different line than me but not by much and then stopped at the cam as well and gave it a few good tugs. The problem with it was that it was behind a flake and must have walked in deeper so that the triggers were out of reach of grasping fingers. The cam was also half a size too big for the placement so that even when the triggers were pulled using a nut-key, the cam still wouldnt come out easily. Dad eventually gave up on the cam as well and continued upwards to join me on the belay ledge. From this ledge the route continued up a reasonably thin crack to another ledge and then followed a smaller crack to the arete before finishing up the arete. I climbed the initial crack, using a combination of jamming in the crack and using holds outside of the crack, up to the second ledge. Once at this ledge I couldnt work out where the route went, i found a couple of thin cracks and decided to start up the easier looking of the two as the route was only HSevere. This crack then headed off left towards the dark green and greasy looking, slightly overhanging corner crack that heads straight up to the top from the large second ledge. By the time I had realised that I was heading to that crack it was too late and I was committed. Climbing the crack I felt on the edge but never the less comfortable and truly believed that I would be able to make it to the top and the realization that I might fall had not even entered my mind. The next thing I remember I was half lying on the second larger ledge and half hanging to the side of it, with a fair amount of blood next to me and a mouth that was definately a few teeth down! A couple of other climbers on the route climbed up to me (I would say quickly but I was unconcious at the time so couldnt actually tell how quickly, however im sure it was as quick as they could and it certainly felt quick) and set up a belay to lower me and dad down off of as I was still trying to work out where I was and wasnt really up to carrying on with the route, however in hindsight I wish I had carried on up! the same two climbers then stripped the route of our gear and then met us at Erics cafe to return it, thanks go to them.
Well there you have an account of my first leader fall and to this day (21st August) im still having dental treatment from it, but will be good as new fairly soon.

My Home Wall

I have recently finished building my home wall in the attic and i thought i would upload some pictures of it for everyone to see, sorry for the rubbish photo taking and bad posting!!

Goals for the Future

There are many things that I would like to achieve with my climbing, some short term, some long term. I will outline some of them here:

Short Term:
Onsight Lead F7a indoors or outdoors
Onsight Lead E1
Alpine AD (for the Lion Ridge on the Matterhorn)

Long Term:
Onsight Lead E5
Onsight Lead F8a

There also various routes that I want to do (on the right hand side of the blog) and mountains that i wish to climb but as I prefer Rock Climbing to Alpinism most of my goals are for Rock Climbing. My main goal however is just to keep climbing as much as possible and keep improving.