The story of how I fractured my ankle and kept photographing. After taking up climbing as a hobby earlier this year, I spent months trying to find friends as excited as me to climb outside. Within the last month I’ve found a solid group of climbing friends and, finally, some people keen to get outdoors in nature and experience climbing that way.
One of my new buds hit me up for a spontaneous climbing adventure and I was over the moon. I couldn’t believe that finally, after months and months of trying and climbing alone, I had found someone that wanted to climb outside. We settled on The Grampians as our destination and set off. There is a ten minute, low-level hike up to the bouldering spots where we wanted to start. My climb partner was experienced and keen to see me have a go and cut my teeth on the climbs. Bouldering is a form of climbing that involves climbing rope free on low-height complex problems. Climbers use pads to protect themselves from hitting the ground and do their best to fall so that they land on their feet.
We arrived at a beginner-level climb and I had a few goes at it. After figuring out the first few moves I tried a small jump movement called a ‘dyno’ to the next hold, missed and fell. It was a short fall of about a metre. I fell well, feet first, ready to land comfortably, but my feet hit a rock beneath the pad, bending my toes up towards my shins and driving all the force of my landing into my heels. Even with the pad,s it was a hard hit. My climbing partner straight away said we would stop climbing and came to check me out. I felt that rush of strange numbness you get when you know you’ve done a proper injury and decided to wait and see how bad it was. In the meantime, I stripped off my climbing shoes, taped my ankles with rock tape, put on extra socks and put my walking shoes back on. My climbing partner was happy to leave, but I didn’t want to. Yes, it was uncomfortable to walk, but it was a hike back out and if we just stayed around the climbs nearby I could continue to photograph him in the nice light, watch and rest.
He found me a big long, thick stick to use as a crutch and I hobbled after him. We started calling me the Wizard of Hollow Mountain Cave. My partner tried several more climbs. I was so excited to photograph but my movements to capture the best framing became limited because I couldn’t get down low easily, squat, rise up on my toes. My right foot was clearly worse than my left, but I couldn’t even stand with all my weight on my left I had to lean on something or use the big stick for support. I took a lot of photos sitting. After another hour or so we decided to go and get some food and head back. The walk back was slow and embarrassing because we had to walk past many groups of climbers while I hobbled along like a wizened old soothsayer, holding my wizard stick in both hands. At one point we reached a small slab incline and I couldn’t walk on it, so I got on all fours and crawled until I was on better terrain for my feet and wizard stick. Because we walked so slow it made it nice to chat, take in the view and nice weather.
In Ararat we stopped at a pizza place and made a huge fuss getting out the car, hobbling slowly to the door of the venue, getting in door, making it to the seat at a table. It wasn’t until this minutes long escapade had taken place that one of the wait staff decided to come and see ‘if we were alright’. Then they asked us if we wanted food, which we said yes. They then informed us they had stopped offering food for the evening. You can imagine the expression on my face at that point.
I hobbled back to the car and we decided on drive through food instead to save me walking. When I got home, I could barley get up the driveway. Luckily we have a walking stick at home so I grabbed that to get to my bedroom. And here’s the icing on the cake, I have a loft bed. Yep. A bunk bed, but with no bottom bunk. For me to get into it I had to climb. So I sat for a bit and edited these photos, then climbed into bed. Getting out the next morning was a thousand times harder, let me tell you.
In the morning my lovely brother dropped me at emergency where I had x-rays and CT scans and was given the diagnosis of a fracture in my right heel. My left was not fractured, but is still so jolly tender that I can’t utilise it as a supporting leg. This means I’m stuck in a wheelchair until it recovers enough for me to go on crutches. I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos I took while hiking/hobbling around with a fractured heel. Here’s to many more wild adventures (hopefully with me climbing a LOT more).
– L
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