More BC

It's tough not to think about moving up here. We went up to Pemberton, a small town nestled in the mountains a bit north of Whistler, to engage in more alternate activities, considering my gimpiness and all. So, we went berry picking. And ate approximately 5 pounds of raspberries and blueberries on the way home. It was kind of disgusting, but amazingly didn't translate into bathroom distress.

Here's Joel and I, outside of a little cafe and vineyard that unfor- tunately didn't even have wine tasting. We ended up not even eating there because it was too expensive.

We also stopped in Whistler, an incredibly touristy resort town that was about what we expected. Joel has been to Squamish for 3 seasons now and has never made it up to Whistler. We stopped to watch the mountain bikers come down the crazy jumps. We couldn't believe that they rent bikes to engage in these shenanigans; supposedly, they have quite a few deaths each year. We did find this one really cool store, however, that sold fossils and petrified wood. For the bargain basement price of 26,000, you can be the owner of a 3x4 piece of petrified wood. I'm only being slightly facetious, they actually were beautiful.

This is me on one of the only boulder problems in Squamish that I could still do. (Bojo Jones, V3, a lowball right heel hook problem). Maneuvering through the forest on crutches got easier, though it was quite taxing on the buttocks, which are evidently essential for the balancing on one foot on uneven terrain. Joel definitely helped a ton with the piggy backing.

Here's Joel on Baba Hari Das, V7, another right heel hook problem that I really wanted to work this year. Unfor- tunately, it is tenuous and tricky and would require a lot of falling on the broken left foot.

Joel on Encore Une Fois, V11, a not-very- asthetic problem that has really cool movement. I really wanted him to get it while I was there so I could say I was his muse or something. But, alas, not yet.

Lee, the other half of team Minnesota that has done an amazing number of long trad routes up the chief this summer, came bouldering with us one day. He is a champ at off-widths and crack climbing in general, but hasn't really gotten into the whole bouldering thing. Here he is on one boulder problem that was a crack climb, called Buns Up and Squealin'.


It had been two weeks and I had been religious on the crutching. But my foot had improved a ton and it wasn't hurting at all. So, I started walking on it. I had a bit of a duck walk, with the weight more on the heel and inner foot. But, as long as I stayed on flat terrain, it did pretty well. It wasn't swollen or green anymore and it sure did make it a lot easier to get around. So, we did what any reasonable person would do--we decided to do a multi-pitch crack climb now that I could actually get to the climb base without an intense amount of piggy-backing. Here's me on Calculus Crack (5.8), which was by far the hardest 5.8 I have ever done. The knee-pad helped and I did do some heavy-duty knee jamming on the off-width section. We were a bit afraid that we'd be the slow group, holding up people behind us. But instead, we spent most of the time waiting for the group in front of us!

We also went to Murrin Lake for some single pitch routes. Here's Joel on Sentry Box, a classic 12a. His fingers didn't fit in the crack, which made it especially hard. It is a sweet looking climb, but I really wasn't able to find a heel hook way to get through the crux section. I'll have to try again next year. By this point, I was able to put Joel's largest climbing shoe on my left foot and use it only for heel hooking. I did do a bunch of climbs where I heel-hooked the hell out of all the crimps.

BC

well, my last- minute trip to BC might have been more fun without a broken foot. however, there are a lot of things to do here with a broken foot, and great company to do them with. here's me at brohm lake, foot out of water.








i did manage to climb, as well, though it was a trick to hike in there. we alternated crutching with piggy- backing. it turns out, i can climb with my right foot and a left knee pad!! it was tough to find knee placements in this finger crack, though.

i can't remember this guy's name, but he was an enthusiastic member of the team of 10 climbers that ingeniously helped us break into joel's car through the trunk. somehow, it locked itself with the keys in joel's pants pocket. slightly shadowed, note the metal spatula, just one of the motley tools that finally spawned success in the venture.

deep sea kayaking around bohen island; a fun, alternative and foot-friendly adventure. here's joel, looking sexy as always.

Fun in CO . . .

. . . despite the broken foot. here's the gorgeous sun setting over the mountains. although it prevented us from going climbing (realistically, the colorado hikes are heinous and undoable in crutches), danielle and i were able to do lots of things together that we haven't ever done before. such as riding the motorized carts at target. if you have to be a gimpy invalid, you might as well have a little fun, eh?

the foot didn't look altogether too bad once the swelling went down and it stopped looking greenish. i am a bad patient, as it turns out. i took the splint off approximately 5 times a day in order to ice it, to bathe and to see how it was looking. i was wondering why at HCMC we use plaster and weberil instead of these fancy automatic splint forming thingies. my conclusion was it is probably so that patients can't take it off so easily.

i also took my splint off in order to crutch into the water and help danielle teach peanut how to swim. she can swim, but she's still in the stage where she won't unless she's absolutely forced. rocco refused to swim volitionally until i went sailing and left him on the shore. he howled for 5 minutes and suddenly, he was swimming across the lake to catch joel and i in the boat. crazy pooch.

The Incident

Danielle and I were psyched to go climbing at Rocky Mountain National Park on her day off. We hiked up there and enjoyed a pleasant hike that felt really short because we were so intently reviewing medical knowledge (I know, we're big dorks). We were warming up on this beautiful boulder with Long's Peak in the background. We decided to go check out some of the other boulders before coming back to this boulder to work on our project, Potato Chip (V7), on the other side of this boulder that was significantly less scary than normal due to the snow. I was hiking in flip flops because I was lazy and I always hike in flip flops. I was hiking over a rather large boulder in the talus field when my wet-from-snow foot slipped and I fell approximately a foot, my flops fell off, I skinned the toe on my right foot and I landed on the curved point of a rock with my bare foot. I called for danielle, but she didn't hear me. I crawled over to a snow field and set up camp. I felt nauseous and stunned and waited for the pain to subside. Danielle came back and bandaged my skinned toe, which was bleeding everywhere. She'd even brought some saline bullets in her first aid kit. But my other foot was the one that I was worried about. Finally, the pain started to subside and I began to think maybe I would climb some more. Then, I tried to stand on it. I winced, sat back down and knew it was broken. At the 5th metatarsal head to be exact. Shannon and Ben, two of Danielle's friends, came to the rescue and helped me get out. I rock hopped and shoulder assisted most of the way over the talus, and then Ben piggy backed me the rest of the way out to the main trail.
I walked on it for at least 3 miles because I was still in pain when using Danielle's shoulder as an assist and it would have gone much slower. So I just tried to walk on the inner part of my foot and the heel. I always kind of wondered if I would be one of the people who would tough it out hike on a broken bone if I had to. Now I know that I can. I did tear up a bit when at times I could feel the bones grinding. We stopped at DQ because we really deserved it by this point. Danielle took me to the Boulder hospital where we found out that I have an unstable oblique fracture on my 5th metatarsal head. No more hiking in flip flops, especially on talus fields. I already hate the crutches and I'm hating the fact that I won't be able to climb for quite awhile.

Colorado

Hesam and I decided to take a road trip in his 1980 VW westfalia. The trip out was a little long-we had to drive 55 the whole way because there is no 5th gear and we had to stop every 3 hours to cool off the air-cooled engine. We finally arrived, spent a margarita-ful fourth at danielle and EZ's house, and went climbing at Mount Evans the following day.

Here's danielle and EZ's dog peanut in front of the meadow boulder.
Unfor- tunately, after the brutally steep 1 1/2 hour hike in

and 1/2 hour of warming up, we got poured on. And usually in CO, it stops. So we were hopeful, and hopeful and hopeful . . . until we hiked out in the rain, which never did stop.

Gay Pride Festival

the drasler sibs and deepika. her family used to live with us when we were both 2. we were exactly the same age and best friends. we have pictures of us in the wagon together. and i haven't seen her since! she finally visited the states and we took her out downtown minneapolis to celebrate. it happened to be gay pride week, and she will probably forever remember minneapolis as the "home of the most gay people she's ever seen in one place." i guess its not so open in india.

High School Reunion

whoa, high school reunions are strange things. the entire night was like, "whoa! that's so-and-so!" people i haven't thought about in 10 years, quite literally. minnetonka was a strange place to go to high school, what with all the orange fake-and-baked dolled-up girls and backwards-hat nice-carred boys. i was pretty much a dork in high school. but, i can honestly say that everyone with whom i initiated a conversation was very friendly and it was really fun to talk to them and hear about what they were doing, even if they were rather superficial repetitive conversations. except kim hastreiter, who used to be a popular girl, on the dance team, "the rettes." SHE decided she couldn't handle all the superficial bull-shit and got really wasted and "hated everyone there because she was living in new york during 911 and she knew how life really was." Tracy McKinney and I in the photo above.

collette being funny at the reunion. she's one of my oldest friends. we go back to the fourth grade, where we had a judy blume club for the book, "friends forever." her husband, joe, and andy seng in the background