I’ve now spent around two months nursing a shoulder injury. Most things feel OK, but some things—like closing a car door, grabbing milk from the fridge, and rolling over in bed—result in a jolt of pain and sometimes a popping sensation followed by a half hour of aching. I’ve been rehabbing like mad, probably too much, and things are just now starting to feel better. Not good, just better. As a result, all the climbing I’ve done lately has been incredibly mellow and at a pace bordering on nonexistent. Jen and I went into the fall feeling strong, and the plan was to hit the gym hard all winter, ice climb a ton, and come into spring crushing, so we could tick off some long-standing projects and some new pie-in-the-sky-goals.
Well, the ice never really came, but I did get myself pretty close to my old sport-climbing shape while tugging on plastic. Then this old injury popped back up and the plan went all to hell. So here we were, down in Moab on a beautiful spring weekend at a time when we were supposed to be in bulletproof shape, tearing down projects left and right. Instead, we were in terrible shape and each nursing our own nagging injuries that have kept us from training—and it was great… The weather was perfect, and we took the time to explore new areas and climb a tower that we had driven and ridden past dozens of times in the past. I pulled on gear on the second pitch of 5.10 face climbing, and aided across a traverse that Jen freed at about 5.9 because it hurts to reach out left. Anchored to the summit capstone that looked like it would fall off the side of the tower and take me with it if I sneezed, I felt the same sense of peace that I always feel in the desert.
Sure, I would like to be climbing strong right now, but mostly I’m just happy to be climbing. Living in the van, drinking beer around a campfire, watching Jasmine run through the open desert, and exploring new canyons always puts my mind at ease no matter the grade of the crack above me when I tie in. The desert just has a way of making everything OK.
