Glen Canyon Park

An Accumulation of Injury

February 20, 2008 -- Ruptured tendon sheath and A1+A2 pulley on my left ring finger. Over a year later this requires taping and care to prevent re-injury. I haven't done much in the way of therapy, although now I am stretching it and trying to strengthen it with exercise and vitamin I. This is an extremely common climbing injury, and it would have been really nice if someone had told me this could would happen if I tried to hang my weight on my ring finger. I have suffered a catastrophic tendon injury in the past requiring surgery and months of healing. I can tell when it's going to rain, even 30 years later. I know that I will continue to use my finger and it will hurt, and swell, and as long as I continue to use it, it will continue to work. And hurt.

January 3, 2009. I fell on the ice in the parking lot of my class in Flagstaff, AZ. It hurt at the time, but not the way it does now. Although I struck the outside of my elbow during the fall, the real injury affected the inside of my elbow and now the tendon seems to hurt under usage, in a way like tendonitis without the sandpaper feeling.

December 7, 2008 -- I pulled a hamstring on my right leg while climbing up Trousdale Ave, during a 30 mile ride with the Mushroom Girl. It still hurts, but only if I try to ride a bike.

September 2008 -- I stepped out into the front yard barefoot and crunched my foot down heavily onto the brick surrounding the lawn. The clicking noise probably wasn't a break, but was rather an adjustment of some of the metatarsals. They now are capable of rendering sufficient pain to a stop a good run. On the last hike I made in the Superstition Wilderness (December 30, 2008), I took some Ibuprofen and hiked through the pain, which seems to have helped stop it from happening. Psychologically, however, it is a factor limiting the extreme boundaries of my performance. I am afraid and unwilling to plan longer hikes or runs because of this.

Today, Lance Armstrong broke his collarbone, and there's a lot of thinking he won't make it to the Tour. The truth is, as you get older, it's all in the journey (it's not the bike). You don't heal as quickly. Fortunately, we endure pain better. Losing some of the function of our finger may not be that important. Ibuprofen works, and it doesn't matter as much that it might damage our livers. It's more fun to climb anyway, eat Vietnamese food, enjoy our friends. To climb gracefully, without complaining. For me, enjoying the moment is infinitely valuable.

Aside from that -- I am thinking about hiking a piece of PCT. Maybe in a few weeks. Despite my injuries.

Over at the House of Pain ...

Photo Angel Viloria

... Things are heating up. I am trying to get myself up to a solid 5.10b rating so I can take a lead climbing class. Or just blow away my climbing partner next time we climb (he's been traveling). So I've been busting my butt. It's a bit like training. I've been working on my finger strength, my gear, the chalking up of my hands, and even the taping technique for my effed up fingers. I've been drinking the power drinks, recovery drinks, and sleeping well before climbing.

I mostly am bouldering a V1, which is typically better than a 5.10b. There is some disconnect because bouldering can be short, while climbing a 5.10.b or c route can go on for some time. I can visualize myself bouldering 15 ft of V3, but feel very challenged by 50 feet of 5.11a/b route. go figure? There's a bit of a difference between the two.

Next time I go to the house of pain, I think I am going to finish a V2 bouldering route. I can feel it, which is just a bit more than simple visualization. I know I can do it if I'm fresh.

The interesting bit for me is the obvious thing. I really need to know every piece of my gear is going to work in an optimal way. Last week, as I reached each new level, a different piece of my gear was holding my back. My fingers were stronger, yep. But my shoes wouldn't stick because they were dirty. I cleaned those with sandpaper.

My pants held me back by restricting my reach. I fixed that by changing pants. I strengthened my fingers with one of those Black Diamond™ rings. My hands have started to develop callouses. When I was an active sculptor, my hands were both strong and tough; now they are neither. Ten years of typing and doing not much have softened them up. They will come back.

Tomorrow, I'll be there at the wall, with my fingers taped, my shoes clean, the right pants, a strap for my glasses, and, hopefully, some crazy effing spidey magic.

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Colusa National Wildlife Refuge

White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons)

White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons)

Avocet

Colusa National Wildlife Refuge

I think this is a Juvenile Merlin?
Some time ago, when Shawnkielty.com was up and running I had a page for Colusa NWR. Sites like stateparks.com linked to me, as a "friend" of the refuge. It was a short page with a few pictures. It's true though, I am and have been a patron and a friend of the refuge.

I stopped there on my way back from Oregon and shot a few pictures.

Nestbox

Black Phoebe

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Cattail

Coots.

Blue Heron

Coot

White Faced Ibis

Cormorants
There's more ... a lot more. I'll post a few more tomorrow.

Mt. Shasta

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Willamette River Day Hike

It's a fairly short tale, really. My friend Mark, his dog Buster, and I went for a Hike along the Willamette near Eugene, Oregon this morning. It was pretty rainy, so we all got a bit wet.

Beaver's Lodge

Mark and Buster
kielty
That Would be Me

Sandbar in the Willamette

There's an Eagle's Nest in There

Wet ...

Our lives can be easily represented by our accumulated stories, the stories we have to tell, good stories usually, since we forget the boring day stories, the dull lusterless grey stories. We live to accumulate stories. We can remember the good days and the bad days; the better or worse the day, often the better the story. I remember the first time I drove a car, Big Frank’s brand new 1971 Cadillac. I was 13. And it was really stuck in the mud on Airport road just west of Colusa, CA. Everyone else was pushing that car, me being the smallest person, I had to drive.

Sometimes, it’s hard to find a good story to tell, despite challenging environments and meeting interesting people, when nothing good or bad really happens. It’s not like I got frostbitten, I just got wet last weekend in a rainstorm because my tent failed. I have several stories to tell about getting wet …

When I was younger, my father used to say that if there was puddle within a few miles I would find it and fall into it. He wasn’t entirely off the mark. Once, when we went goose hunting, I stepped out of the car into a three foot deep post-hole (the only puddle for miles around), sending my right leg in that puddle up to my testicles. What he never knew despite all his story telling, was that I could set my tent up in it too, and usually I would. I have been every variety of wet in the wilds … in over my waders … nude swimming in the icy Couer D’Alene … showering under a hand pump in a desert campground … falling drunkenly out of a canoe … and genuine difficulties, like the plank bridge snapping below me over Rock Creek one cold April morning, or me in the water with a bunch of rattlesnakes swimming very near there later that summer. I’ve been wet so many times, for so many reasons it’s often been a joke to those that know me. There’s a whole other story about me and broken glass …

When I was younger and I got wet it was often a problem. When I was about 16, I went to Yosemite for spring break; with a few of my high school friends. Ron Kauk might have been there trying to unlock the famed Midnight Lightning. My friends all hitch-hiked to the valley. I wanted to, but my mother insisted I ride the bus. I went to Sunnyside (now Camp 4) where we were all supposed to meet and I set up my gear. My friends didn’t show. I set my tube tent (my first of many bad tent decisions) up in a wash between two trees, which, ummm … filled with water when it rained during the night.

I moved into the heated bathroom at Camp 4 with a wet sleeping bag and my aspirations; aspirations of being in the wilderness and being a naturalist and a guide and a savvy outdoorsman. Ron Kauk might have come into the bathroom and given me advice about how to dry out my bag. “Go to Housekeeping Camp and use the dryers.” I tried to stay in the bathroom, but it was busy and the Ranger threw me out repeatedly, and threatened to find me a “Warm place to stay.” It was impossible.

The next morning I was soaked. It was cold and getting colder. I tried to find a place to dry out my gear. By noon the snow level had dropped to right above the valley floor, and I was still struggling to get my gear dried out. By dark it was snowing heavily on the valley floor.

At about 9 or 10 that night I called my parents and they came and got me – I had had enough. I never got my gear dried out, and I never really found my friends. It was cold and I was starting to suffer from it. So much for my aspirations.

My aspirations. To be a savvy outdoorsman.

Here I am many years later, and I haven’t lost my touch. I set my tent up in what would later become a puddle, left the fly door open and was drenched by morning. Additionally, the tent failed miserably. It leaked through the floor and ceiling. I was seriously wet. There’s one small difference. I was warm. I was wet, but warm. These days I can afford a lot better gear. Soaking wet in Patagonia Capilene base layer and a North Face Snowshoe 0 degree bag, in 35 degrees winter wetness, and I was toasty warm. Mostly.

Setting up my tent in the yard to dry it out, I realized that the paint that said “Sierra Designs” on the side was wearing off, indicating the obvious age of the tent. It has been through a dozen rainstorms, several windstorms and several snowstorms. It’s seen better days. So now I am looking at a new tent.

Party at Bean Street

Pool Shoreline
I used photostich to put this together.

Rain ...

... Still isn't that much fun. I got a bit wet last night.

You Remind Me of ...

Fire Damage near the North Entrance to the Valley

Tenaya Creek

Half Dome from the Meadow

Mirror Lake

Mirror Lake

1 March 2009. Yosemite Valley
It’s threatening to rain as the daylight fades and I am cozy in the Great Room at the Ahwahnee, curled up by the big fire listening to these sounds from the 20’s. It wasn't easy to find an internet connection here in pardise, but if you spend enough, you can connect in the lobby of your hotel for free, even in paradise. I'm not staying in the Ahwahnee, mind you, but I am enjoying the pleasures of the lobby.

It's been fairly grey here and threatening to rain for days, but I did manage to take a few photos of the fire damage up near the old Big Oak Flat road on Friday.

Crystal Magic -- Yosemite Valley -- Day 5

During the night, the valley was transformed into a crystal palace. Blame it on elves or just the sun coming out; glitter and light were literally falling from the sky. It was magic.

Beyond that, there's not too much to talk about. Three things happened. I got stood up for breakfast, a snow plow pulled into the parking lot about ten minutes before I was ready to try to drive out (do the miracles never cease), and I shot about 100 photos before I left at about 1. At one point I literally stopped my truck in the road to shoot out the window, explaining the the honking car behind me, "Hey, it's a photo emergency." Enjoy!