Climbing in Wyoming - 2010
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Click on thumbprint photos to see them enlarged.Introduction note: Climbing this year really began with the slot canyons in Zion NP in mid June. Two weeks later I did some climbing in Utah near Hoop Lake. Following are some climbing outings close to home in Wyoming.
July 12-13: Dave Lewis, my climbing/canyoneering friend from Dayton, OH came back out to visit me in Wyoming as an extension to a backpacking trip with his wife in Yellowstone. We decided to take Dave up to Wild Iris near South Pass in the Wind River Mountains. These limestone climbing walls have become well known within the climbing community. We made a camping weekend of it with Marco & Lorna. Stephanie Newsom joined us as well. Dave also enjoyed climbing some or our local sandstone around Green River.
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Christine & Joe at camp. |
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Dave, Lorna, Stephanie, & Marco setting up belays. |
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Stephanie & Lorna ... |
... and Marco & Joe simul-climb two parallel routes. |
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Joe tackles a challenging route (for him). |
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Dave Lewis takes on some routes at the Main Wall. |
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Joe works on a route on the Main Wall. |
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August 7: From the photos below, you can see that I had a mishap. I went up to Wild Iris with a large group of local Green River climbers for a day of climbing. I was climbing very well, building confidence leading some routes. I think this was my fourth route of the day, and I was attempting to lead a 5.9 route, something I had never done before. The first bolt was about 13 feet above the ground, a bit higher than normal for me. Often, I can reach up and clip the rope into the first bolt without leaving the ground. In this particular case I should have 'stick-clipped' the first quickdraw (using a device on a stick design for this purpose). That would have put me on belay from the start, but instead I was soloing until I clipped into the first anchor. I won't make that mistake again. I lost my footing and came off of the wall intending to land squarely on both of my feet 6-7 feet below. My right foot caught a ledge about 18" off the ground, snapping my ankle immmediately. The X-Ray film shows the long screw holding the bottom of my tibia (medial malleolus) back in place. The bottom of my fibula (lateral malleolus) broke into many pieces, so the metal plate is screwed into a solid part of my fibula with three screws, with the lower part of the plate just pinching the broken pieces into place.
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