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Category Archives: Torn Meniscus

Summer is Here!

Posted on July 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here’s a few bullet points from the last few weeks.

-Went to the Black Hills of SD and fell off the last move of Orange Roughy, a super classic V6, after two days of work. Didn’t send a single problem besides my warm-ups. Really psyched on the bouldering there and I will be back for the better temps in the fall.

-Roped up outside for the first time since October (9 months!) and just about gave up twice on a 5.8 at Natural Bridge, but I made it, barely. Pumped out half-way up a four bolt 5.10… on top rope. Yep, I’m in awesome rope climbing shape. It was still a fun day climbing with Jenn while she was on vacation from the hustle and bustle of NYC.

-Matt showed Ho and I a new bouldering area in the TRs today. CRAZY HUGE BOULDERS!!! A dozen house sized boulders in a small area. I’m not talking 15 footers, real house sized boulders… some 40 feet tall. Some comparable to the Grandpa Peabody in Bishop. Way better than the Cataracts and N. Willow Boulders, but probably about an hour farther away, including a semi-rough hike. We did about 10 new problems, with each of us getting the FA of an excellent problem. I got pretty good video of the best 3 problems and I’ll post it up in a couple of days. For now here’s a pic of Matt on a new semi-highball. It’s only V1/2 to the lip, but the mantle is the crux (I didn’t even try the mantle).

-Lastly, for those curious, my knee has been doing really well. I’ve been climbing on it, and doing everything else, just fine for about a month now. The only thing I’ve been avoiding is heel-hooks like the one that caused it (right foot, toes pointing in), which is a pretty rare maneuver.

Injury, Cody, & Yankee Jim

Posted on May 24, 2010 | 5 comments

Well, I’ve been holding off on posting since I got from Cody because I wanted to wait until after my doctor’s appointment this morning. Yep, injury time. Long story short: Cody bouldering – sit start heel hook – POP! – knee hurts. I was completely sure that I tore my ACL because of the pop, but luckily I didn’t… I tore my meniscus. I’m going to give it a few weeks to a month and see how it feels once it has settled down. If it feels good after a month, I shouldn’t have to worry about it. But if it’s still bad, I may need to have it repaired. Either way, it’s a lot better than tearing my ACL, like I thought in the first place. It could be a blessing in disguise. I’ve been meaning to take five or six weeks off of climbing for a long time to give my fingers a break, so now I can. Hopefully I’ll be back just in time for the summer heat…

Onto the fun stuff. As I mentioned before, I made a little bouldering trip down to Cody. The plan was to head out Friday night and climb in Yankee Jim then climb in Cody Sat, Sun, Tues, and Wed. I hurt my knee on Tuesday so I cut it short by a day to get back to Bozeman before my knee started swelling up. It ended up being one of my best climbing trips ever. I managed to finish off all of my projects in Cody within the first couple days and did a bunch of other classics as well. I took a ton of video on the trip so I’ll start off with some of the problems I did in Yankee Jim.

I’m starting to get really psyched on Yankee Jim again. Lot’s of good, steep problems with really good movement. I’ve even found my sick proj for the summer/fall, the Way Out Variation. It’s a little contrived, but it’s right at my limit (if I can do it) and it’s really good movement. It’s pretty much a 3 or 4 move V6 crouch start that links into a V3 dyno (see vid below). I’ve gotten really close to sticking the first couple slap compression moves, but I think getting into the dyno position is going to be the crux. Unfortunately, the first few moves are off of a right heel-hook, which is where my injury is, so it may have to wait until the fall.

Anyway, the hightlight of the first day of the trip, Friday evening, was Jars of Clay, a sandbagged V3 on the far end of the Locomotives. I remember trying this one of the first times I went to Yankee Jim, years ago. I couldn’t even pull off the starting holds. Well, I still couldn’t pull off the starting holds until I found a sneaky toe-hook that made it do-able and really, really fun. It’s a short problem, but it’s some of the coolest movement I’ve done in Montana, the toe-hook makes it feel more like Hueco than Montana.

Stay tuned for a bunch of video and some more climbing ramblings about my time in Cody. For now, heres a vid of me at Yankee Jim doing Stronghold, Way Out Stand, and Jars of Clay, all excellent problems. Enjoy!

-EC