Adventures in Leaving the House

My friend Coby has a special talent for internet research. Like you'll be talking to her on the phone and casually mention how you've been craving some obscure dish you used to eat when you lived in Sicily, and 2 minutes later she'll be like "oh by the way, there are 3 restaurants in a 20 mile radius of you that make that - one got poor reviews but another one delivers to your zip code! I just emailed you a coupon." So when I came up empty for ideas for things to do which are not physically demanding, she sent me a link to the Boulder events calendar. I realize that looking up a local events calendar is not that impressive, but that doesn't mean that Coby herself isn't impressive, and I wanted to give her a proper introduction.

Two things immediately caught my eye among the daily salsa dances and free outdoor concerts - well ok, three, but I think there may be an age limit on this one. One is the Boulder Brew Bus: "For the ultimate beer experience, you'll board Banjo Billy's private, funky bus..."
Wow.
They had me at banjo. No, wait, they had me at beer. They almost lost me again at $30, but hey, desperate times.

The other is Boulder Outdoor Cinema. Watching a movie in a lawn chair? I've been training for that all summer! It would be just like how I've spent the last 768 hours of my life, except outdoors, surrounded by lots of other people in lawn chairs. It's like taking a lame, depressing activity and turning it into a fun socially acceptable community event. I'm in! Unfortunately, this didn't seem that exciting to any of the other 5 people I know in this city. Honestly, I can completely understand that. Still, watching a movie alone outside with strangers seemed slightly more appealing than watching a movie alone in my living room, so I put on my Little Engine face, packed a PB&J, and dragged my lawn chair to the car.

Getting from the parking lot with the cars to the parking lot with the movie, finding a spot off to the side with a clear view, and setting up the lawn chair was strenuous. Between the chair, water bottle, dinner, and book I was probably exceeding my cargo capacity. But I got all set up, sank into my trusty lawn chair, and felt the familiar relaxing 45 degree angle. Ahhhhh. The breeze was blowing, the trees were shading, the mountains were looking all majestic in the background. They had live music, snacks, and hula hoops. Kids were running around barefoot, people were eating, drinking, playing cards, laughing. It was downright pastoral. 

Then a guy shows up with several large bags and politely asks if he can "set up shop" in the empty 4'x5' space directly in front of me. I was surprised to be asked, but told him to feel free. Lounging on his queen sized air mattress, he definitely wasn't going to block my view, and I was inwardly pleased to see that I was not the only lame...er... confident, independent person going to the movie alone.
Then his date showed up. High heels, fancy dress, nervous giggle - she was trying a bit too hard for the occasion, I'm thinking first date, or at least early date. Then the guy produces some food from his many bags: fresh-baked bread, brie, two plastic wine glasses, and 3 different varieties of fruit juice so he could be sure he had one she liked. Definitely a first date. He then proceeds to pull more food from the bag, until he has a 5-course meal arrayed on the airbed which could have fed a family of 12. I know you'll think that's hyperbole, but it's not - and if I exaggerated even the slightest from the truth, you would just think I was being ridiculous and it would lose its impact.

Now, I don't begrudge people having a first date, even a wildly over-the-top first date. I happen to think going all out on occasions like dates, Halloween, 4th of July, and birthdays is both appropriate and fabulous. It's just that usually, when two people are doing their awkward "I want to touch you but I don't want to look like I want to touch you so I'm going to sit in a way that makes me 'accidentally' touch you and then see if anyone pulls away" dance as they try to figure out how to sit/lay in an appropriate yet not uptight manner on a squishy airbed, I don't have to witness it from 3" away. Add to this scene my extremely limited ability to turn my head in other directions, and it was awkward to say the least. I should add that they were both polite and friendly, and in addition to asking permission to sit in front of me the guy offered to share their all-you-can-eat picnic with me. I politely declined. 7 times. And proceeded to eat my PB&J before I was exactly hungry just to lay to rest their fears that I might be secretly starving.

I have to admit they at least provided me with entertainment before the entertainment. The band was good, the weather was pleasant, and I tried very hard to zen myself into enjoying how pretty the mountains looked without being bitter that I wasn't currently hanging from the side of one of them. As the sun went down and the previews began to roll, a very large, very inebriated man stumbled up behind me, then stumbled onto me, then sorta rolled/stumbled off of me again and stumbled off into the bushes, mumbling in a slurry sort of way. I was laying in my lawn chair, which supports you if you lay on it, but if you are to push on the back of the chair in the opposite direction, it offers no resistance. This is the direction in which 200 lbs. of drunk guy fell onto me, then pushed off of me to try to stand up again. As everyone knows, being drunk makes you not only less coordinated but also much heavier. This forced my head forward and bent my torso in exactly the way I am really not supposed to, and I felt sharp pain in my back worse than any since - well, since the last time a guy fell on my head.

At this point in the story, you may be wondering "Who on earth pre-games The Princess Bride?" The movie hadn't even started yet and this guy seemed about 10 drinks farther in than is really warranted for 8pm at a family event. My dad, at this point in the story, was wondering "Did you get his insurance information?" I reminded him of the drunkenness. He said "Being drunk doesn't absolve you of your legal responsibilities." I tried to explain that while that may be true, there was probably very little a 120 lb. girl in a back brace and a lot of pain could do to enforce the legal responsibilities of a 200 lb. guy who would be hiccupping bubbles if he were a cartoon. Also, that it would probably be wisest to cut my losses and end the interaction between us as quickly as possible. All I was thinking, at this point in the story, was "Ow."

I figured watching a movie in a lawn chair would be pretty safe. It's not like I went out clubbing, I mean who expects someone to land on their head at a kid's movie? What are the chances? My theory is that my spine is cursed. Eric, ever optimistic, reasons that after all this my bad luck must have run out by now, and therefore I can probably do whatever I want from now on. I like his style. 

If you're wondering about Banjo Billy and his funky brew bus, I wasn't able to interest anyone else in joining me and decided that while I couldn't have foreseen being injured by a drunken lout at an outdoor kid's movie, I would probably just be asking for trouble climbing onto a beer-tasting tour bus unaccompanied. Maybe next year.

Accident Story

Tuesday morning, June 15, Eric and I got up bright and early psyched to start getting serious about climbing. After a few weeks of visitors and 4 days of pouring rain, we were looking at a weather forecast of 10 straight days of mid-80s and sunny. Eric had picked out a few awesome climbs that we would be able to swing leads on, so we packed up our gear and started a long, steep hike up to the Redgarden Wall in Eldorado Canyon. I led the first pitch of Green Spur, which was about 50 feet of 5.5 (very easy, even for me). I built a gear anchor at a small ledge, tied in, and belayed Eric as he climbed up to join me.

The next pitch was 5.9, and started with a tricky section in a sorta flaring dihedral. Eric got a piece of gear in above the anchor and spent some time trying to figure out the moves - climbing up to try something and climbing back down to a stance several times. It actually occurred to me during this time that if he fell in this tricky section, he would probably land right on top of me. With this in mind, I asked him to wait at his stance while I shortened my tie-in to the anchor. I was standing comfortably on a ledge with a long tie-in and was visualizing being knocked off the ledge if he fell, and didn't want to risk losing control of the brake strand. So I shortened my tie-in so that it was almost taut as I stood belaying. At some point, Eric was able to get a second piece of gear about six feet above my head, and I stopped worrying about him falling on me.

On his last attempt at the starting moves, he tried something a bit different off to the side a bit, so that even though he was no higher than previous attempts, there was more rope out. Without any warning, Eric slipped off the rock and crashed full force into my head. My perception is that he hit me with full force and immediately after, the rope came taut and caught him. It all happened kinda immediately and all at once - I felt sharp pain in my back, neck, and head and the first words out of my mouth were "Eric you broke my back!". For a second, I wasn't sure I'd be able to breathe properly or keep standing. Then I noticed extreme dizziness and confusion and my next thought was fear that I would lose consciousness and drop his belay rope. I said something like "Eric you have to take your rope I might drop you!" (I did not ask if he was ok until several minutes later, luckily he was unhurt and was able to think much more clearly than I). Despite my request, apparently I refused to let go of his belay rope, even after he was safely on the ledge and he eventually had to peel my fingers off the rope.

At this point, blood was gushing from a nice deep gash across my eyebrow, courtesy of one of the cams hanging on Eric's harness. I was aware enough to know that I wasn't in any condition to be thinking or deciding anything, and told Eric this. He was extremely calm and reassuring and told me I would be fine and he would take care of everything. Which he did. He lowered me to the ground, only 50 feet below, and then my mind went completely blank and I said "I don't know what to do now". Not getting any helpful response, I said louder "I don't know what to do now!" and burst into tears. This got the attention of two climbers who had been waiting to climb the route after us, then my gushing head wound probably convinced them I needed assistance, and they helped me untie and sit down. These nice gentleman later collected all our gear and left it at the bottom of the route for Eric to retrieve later. (We didn't lose a single sling or biner! Pretty impressive. Though some are slightly bloodier now.)

For the next hour or so, I remained extremely disoriented and confused. I repeatedly instructed Eric to call John, my boyfriend and fellow climber who had left 4 days before and was now in California. I was convinced that he was climbing nearby, and if Eric would just call him, he would be there in about 5 minutes and take me home. Also, the act of "taking me home" would magically make me uninjured. Eric, living in the real world, chose instead to focus his efforts on getting me to the hospital. What a jerk. I got increasingly agitated about this until Eric finally said "I just talked to John, he'll be here in 5 minutes." After which, I promptly forgot all about it.

I next decided that Eric should just "go get the car". Now, in my mind, this seemed perfectly logical. I mean, how lazy was Eric? Couldn't he see that I was hurt? I can't walk like this! Just go get the car. To understand this request from Eric's perspective, you have to visualize the trail we were on. Picture a staircase. Now, make it twice as steep. And 5 miles long. Now, instead of being made out of stairs, imagine that it is made out of a giant pile of rubble, loosely held together by the tenuous bonds of friction. Seriously. This is a no joke hike. It's not even a hike. Noone would hike there if they weren't trying to get to a climb. If you have great shoes and two free hands it's doable, but not fun. If you are a Hyundai Elantra, it is not happening. I believe Eric tried to explain to me that the only vehicle that could possibly get to us was perhaps a helicopter. I think it dawned on me slowly that this was not happening as I half-heartedly responded "so.... go get the helicopter?"

Instead of calling John in California or jogging down the trail to bring back "the helicopter", Eric chose instead to try to help me walk safely down the trail. Here's where my head wound really paid off. The laceration near my eye turned out to be the most superficial of my injuries, but stumbling around holding a blood-soaked t-shirt to my face (Eric just loves any excuse to show off his pecs) and, in general, being blood-soaked is WAY more flashy. Bystanders usually don't have X-ray vision, so they can't be like "Hey, I see you crushed some vertebrae! Need a hand?" But blood is like body-language for "HELP ME NOW!" and soon enough, a friendly fellow climber offered to help me down the trail. With friendly bystander in front and Eric behind, I now made safe and timely progress down the trail. And they only forgot that I couldn't see out of my right eye once.

After we'd gotten almost halfway down, my blood distress signal flagged down two more fellow climbers, one of whom volunteers with the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group. He made us stop and called them in, and they all responded to some magical bat-signal and swooped in to save the day. Some of them took my vital signs and poked things into me, some of them strapped me into a giant litter, some of them bandaged my face, and all of them were super happy and friendly and nice. This is really impressive, considering they managed to stay happy and friendly and nice even while carrying me, in a giant litter, down the trail. That trail that I described earlier. While I was all cozily packed away, with no other task than to lie there and look pretty, I heard things like "Loose rock on your side there, Allison"; "Watch out for that tree branch, Allison"; and "Yay, we get to walk straight through a giant patch of poison ivy. Shame you aren't wearing pants, Allison." Allison was super badass and chill about it all though. This was some seriously strenuous, uncomfortable, hot, dangerous, and itchy work and they still had energy to make bad jokes for me.

After I start a blog, maybe my next project will be to bake some cookies for them. I used to work as an EMT, and if there's one thing I learned, it's that you can never have too many baked goods at the squad house. Luckily for our patients, I learned WAY more than one thing. I'm just saying, nobody hates cookies.

UPDATE: I will always be sorry that we didn't get any pictures of the rescue operation or of my completely bloodied face immediately post-accident. This was the best we could do the next day - we are trying to show off my stitched up eye and Eric's blood tie-dyed T-shirt at the same time.

 Sigh... it looked so much cooler the day before.