Don't be that guy.

Last weekend, I went to the Gunks with Eric. I led my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, (and 5th? I lost track...) 5.8 trad leads, and I did them with style and grace. Well, style and a lot of grunting. Eric threw himself at a 5.10b siege-style until he beat it and made it cry. It was a fully stellar limit-pushing weekend.

This is not a story about our unmitigated mutual badassery.

This is a story about a lovely fellow we had the good fortune to meet and interact with repeatedly, and why you should never be that guy.

First Contact: I'm belaying Eric as he leads the second pitch of something in the vicinity of Arrow. This guy, we'll call him "Jerk Face", is belaying his second on a climb to our right. I have no way of knowing she was his girlfriend, but that's the vibe I got. It quickly became clear through overhearing their high-volume conversation that he knows everything about climbing, the Gunks, and life and his supremacy is not to be questioned. At one point he gave a speech about how wearing socks is what all real climbers do, and only total newbs wear climbing shoes without socks. Girlfriend was struggling following the pitch, clearly unnerved by some wet holds at the crux, and expressing her stress quite loudly. Rather than say reassuring and encouraging things to his climbing partner, Jerk Face decided that berating her was the way to go.

JF: Come on! What is your problem? This is easy!
GF: The holds are wet! I feel like I can't grip anything!
JF: They weren't wet when I climbed it. Clearly you're using the wrong holds. Use the dry ones.
GF: I can't find dry ones! I don't think I can do this, I don't remember how to do this part!
JF: Come ON!!!!!! Just CLIMB it already!

I could feel Girlfriend's stress increasing and felt so bad for her that eventually I yelled something encouraging at her. It probably didn't help.

So, we meet again:
Our plan was to climb a bunch of pitches right in the same area, and this lovely couple clearly had the same idea. We rapped down to the GT ledge, and clipped into the bolt anchors on Arrow. Jerk Face was also on the ledge, anchored about 5 feet to my left. Girlfriend was still on the ground below, thinking about putting her climbing shoes on.  Eric put me on belay and I prepared to lead the second pitch of Arrow. This would be only my third 5.8 lead, definitely a tough climb for me. Also, the first moves off the ledge are especially difficult, not to mention that the first moves off the belay are always a super special brand of stressful for me, whether I'm leading or belaying, for obvious reasons.

I'm ready to go and Jerk Face yells out "Hey, I don't mind if you throw your rope on my head or steal my climb, but if you blow the moves on this overhang I'm going to be pissed at you."

I stop, look over at him, genuinely baffled. He said this very pointedly, without any hint of levity in his tone. We didn't drop our rope on his head. We also didn't, as far as I'm concerned, steal his climb. If his second is still on the ground, they are most decidedly on the first pitch of the climb, and can't really monopolize any others. Still, if he truly thought he had dibs for some reason, he could have said so calmly and politely. We might even have let him have it. Instead he waited until I was on lead leaving the ledge to be all snarky and passive-aggressive.

I think I said something really eloquent like "....whahuh?"

He clarified: "If you fall off that overhang up there and land on my head, I'm going to be pissed off at you."
This caught me totally off guard. Not having actually done anything rude to him, I was really not expecting this kind of interaction from a random fellow climber. So rather than respond with some indignant sarcastic retort, I got all flustered: "I won't! I mean, I'm going to put in gear, of course! There's good gear up there, and even if I fell, I wouldn't land on anyone, and obviously I'm going to protect it well! I'm going to be careful!"

Jerk Face had no way of knowing this, but he couldn't have chosen a better comment to seriously rattle me. Eric knew this, and said some reassuring things which didn't help much. If this guy's intention was to get us to hurry up climbing this pitch so we wouldn't slow him down, he picked a fabulous strategy. My head was not in a good place anymore, and I struggled with the first move. It was a bit dynamic for me and I just needed to commit to it, but I just couldn't do it. I could feel Jerk Face and his mean vibes from 5 feet away.

He said "Have either of you even done this climb before?" Eric replied "Yes. We both have. Several times." in a very this-conversation-is-over sorta way. At some point another pair of climbers rapped down to the ledge and shared the anchor with us, and I think they stayed for a while just to try to counteract Jerk Face's negativity. I asked if I was in their way to continue their rappel, and they said "No, we just want to watch you get this move! You can do it!"

Eventually, Girlfriend joined Jerk Face on the ledge, and they wandered off to do some other climb. Almost as soon as he was out of sight, I relaxed and pulled the move off the ledge. Then I cruised the overhang, thank you very much! I felt pretty good about that, but still my mojo was all retardified, and I was at least as annoyed with myself for being so easily messed with as I was with Jerk Face for being such a jerk face.

Oh no, not you again:
After cruising through the rest of the pitch, I arrived at the crux of the climb: the last few delicate balance-y face moves protected by a bolt. As I pondered the sequence, I heard Jerk Face yelling at Girlfriend again to my left, as she climbed up to his anchor. I attempted the move but fell onto the bolt, and Jerk Face yelled over to me "I thought you said you climbed this before!" Realizing that any response would result in endless escalation, I completely ignored him.

Wait...seriously?? Dude, not cool!!:
Later, after finishing the climb and while belaying Eric, I overheard Jerk Face and Girlfriend again. This time, they were rappelling and Jerk Face had paused about 15 feet below the top-out to attempt to remove a fixed tri-cam that a friend of theirs had left behind earlier that day. His method of choice was to whale on it with a nut tool and a softball sized rock that he had brought down with him from the top of the cliff. Unless he had figured out some method of clipping the rock to himself that I couldn't see, this was a terrible idea. He finally decided that it was not coming out and told Girlfriend he was going to finish rappelling. Girlfriend asked him to clip the nut tool to the tricam so she could give it a try. He gave her a scathing glare and she quickly timidly added "If you can't get it out I'm sure I won't be able to! I just felt like trying.... nevermind."

Pay attention, here's the thick of the plot:
Jerk Face says "I'm going to leave this rock right here - haha, some newb is going to grab it and think it's a jug and pull it off! HA!'

...and then he continues on rappel. And leaves the rock there. On a classic, well-traveled climb where no "newb" or expert would reasonably expect to find a large loose rock on a small ledge. This wasn't just a careless and stupid action, he actually thought through the potential consequences - that some unsuspecting climber could encounter this rock and pull it off, endangering anyone below them, including their belayer and therefore themselves (not everyone is badass enough to catch lead falls with severe concussions!). He thought through the consequences, and did it anyway. And laughed about it.

I sincerely hope no one will be hurt by that rock. This guy cast an unpleasant funk over our entire afternoon. Still, we were able to head on over to Pink Laurel and have a great time on a stellar climb despite both of us getting our heads stuck in the chimney. That guy, however, had to continue being him. What a miserable existence.

Eric wondered why Girlfriend put up with such a world class d-bag. I speculated that for every total a-hole, there is a girl with low enough self-esteem to be willing to date him. So fellas, don't be that guy. More importantly, ladies, don't DATE that guy. Behavior like that should not be encouraged. You can do better. I promise. If you have a vagina and a pulse, you can do better. 

This has been a public service announcement. 

Massive injuries make the little things exciting again.

Look what I can do!!

 

I'm touching my toes, in case you were wondering what is exciting about this picture.

Even though I'm regaining some torso flexibility, when I need to pick something up off the floor, I still always squat full-on grand-plie style, just out of habit.

And when I need to put on or take off my socks, I stand upright and bring my foot up to hip level, flamingo-style.

I wonder if this will fade with time, or if it will forever seem normal. I can see ten years from now someone asking me why in the world I put my socks on like that, and explaining to them "Well this one time I went climbing with this guy out in Colorado...."

Happiest 15 minutes of my life.

Today my physical therapist said to me "This is the first time I've seen you smile in 6 months!"I told him he could've seen me smile anytime he wanted to, he just had to say the magic words:
"You can go climb now."

I was not expecting this today. Just a few weeks ago, I was barely getting through classes, not doing any PT, and still wearing my brace daily for large chunks of time. Starting school was just too much too fast and caused a huge setback in my rehab. Then pretty suddenly I finally felt almost normal. I felt like a horribly out-of-shape person who'd been sedentary for 4 months, but no longer felt like an invalid. I also was making it through entire days without the brace at all, about every other day. After a full week of that, my physical therapist agreed that it was time to start working. I was pretty psyched, despite the bittersweetness of spending a gorgeous October weekend in a smelly, windowless room surrounded by sweaty but apparently uninjured people. I know why I was in there, but I can't figure out why they were.

The interesting thing about strength training with weight machines is that you can quantify your capabilities. Being able to control and keep track of specifically which muscles are working and how much weight they are moving is exactly why my physical therapist wanted me in there, but it was a bit shocking. I honestly wasn't aware it was possible for a person to be as weak as I am right now. I also got weighed - I lost about 12 lbs. since the accident, and it's all muscle. I hope that number on the scale is only going to go up now, but it's disturbing - the last time I weighed this little, I wasn't yet this height.

I have exercises that I have to do every single day, no exceptions, no rest days. It only takes about an hour, but the first 3 days that was absolutely all I had in me for the day. I came home, showered, ate lunch, and wondered if 1pm was an unreasonable time to go to bed. My complete uselessness was not conducive to finishing my first real project of the semester, but when it came down to sacrificing PT for the day or any hope of getting my schoolwork done, I went to the gym. I decided to stick with school this semester and it set my rehab back about a month. This time I chose my body.

It paid off! Today my physical therapist looked at my PT log and poked at my back and watched me do some exercises and said "What about the climbing wall?"

Me: I didn't go!! I promise! You told me not to!
PT guy: I know. I think you should start.
Me: ....wait.....REALLY???

I didn't hear anything else he said for a few minutes because my brain was busy exploding with joy. He finally got my attention and said "LISTEN. You are weaker than you have EVER been before. Be CAREFUL. 15 minutes max. You might not be able to do even that much. No falling or jumping." Ideally, I would do 15 min. a day, every day, gradually increasing. But I still have to do all my mandatory gym exercises too, and the 30 min. drive to the wall isn't super practical for 7 days a week.

Leaving the PT office, since I was already near the climbing wall, I went straight there. I never imagined when I left my house this morning that I should bring my climbing shoes with me. I'm not sure I even know where my climbing shoes are, the last time I saw them I was in a different time zone.

Climbing again was surreal. I am much, much weaker than I was the first time I ever climbed, and yet I still have all the experience and knowledge so I am in some ways much better, and in other ways much worse, than the first time I got on a wall. My grip strength is happily not as hopeless as I expected, my balance is terrible and my flexibility is a joke. Did I mention I have only very recently been able to reach my own shoelaces? As I was stemming in a corner, resting, I began to cry. I don't think I ever understood crying for joy before, but the relief was just overwhelming. Luckily no one was there to see me. I'm still badass. Being deeply moved by 15 minutes on a fake wall doesn't change the fact that I've crack-climbed on a broken foot and hiked out with 5 crushed vertebrae, a broken rib, gushing head wound, and traumatic brain injury. Awww, yeah.

Speaking of 15 minutes, it was really hard to stop. Luckily I had groceries in my car and a strategically underfed parking meter to help tip the scales toward my responsible side.

Today is October 15th. 4 months to the day since the last time I climbed. Now if you care about me at all, you need to do two very important things. Come hang out with me at the wall and be a super encouraging belayer, and wish very hard that wintery-ness holds off a bit this year - long enough for me to get strong enough for just one late-season Gunks weekend.