Hands and Knees

Sunday March 22^nd 2009

The day started off as any other normal day with the exception that I was going to do my first ice climbing solo attempt.  I must tell you that this is something that is not common nor is it something that is encouraged within the climbing community.  Most of all it isn’t encouraged by anyone.  I had decided that I was going to do this climb after there were several failed attempts to get a partner for the weekend.  My climbing partner Kurtis had family engagements that weekend, Matt was finishing up some school work and Melanie was busy.  That left one other person and that was me and me alone.

I had decided that I was going to Restoule Provincial Park and climb the route called “the Snake”.  This is a 125ft route classed as a WI4 (water ice 4).  Since I wasn’t leading this climb using protection, meaning ice screws with a belayer  I was going to use a standard weigh bearing knot called a Prusik Knot.  This is a type of knot that was used in the past and is more commonly used as backup protection; something you would use if you are rappelling.  There are other devices such as ascenders or self-belaying devices like Silent Partner.  It was a chance I was willing to take as I felt extremely confident in my ice climbing ability.  It would turn out that my climbing was not in question however, the protection I was using.

The Prusik Knot is a simple and effective knot if used properly.  It is a friction hitch or knot used to put a loop of cord around a rope.  I used a 60mm sling for my protection.  The Prusik is tied by wrapping the prusik loop around the rope a number of times, usually 3-5 times depending on the materials, and then back through itself, forming a barrel around the rope with a tail hanging out the middle. When the tail is weighted, the turns tighten and make a bend in the rope. When weight is removed, the loop can be moved along the rope by placing a hand directly on the barrel and pushing. Breaking the Prusik free from the rope after it has been weighted can be difficult, however, and is easiest done by pushing the bow, the loop of cord which runs from the top wrap over the knot to the bottom wrap, along the tail a little. This unwinds the wrap to loosen the grip of the hitch, and makes movement easier.

I packed up my gear around noon and drove to Restoule Provincial Park.  The drive there is roughly 77kms or about 1hr 15min drive.  From the vehicle to the climb site is about 2km and a 45min hike through a trail and then across a lake to a little inlet where the ice is.  The day was roughly -15c and clear blue skies.

First thing was to get to the top to set the ropes up.  A few days earlier Matt and I were there climbing and discovered some ice about 200yards away that will allow us to ascent freely without rope (20ft) to save ourselves some time from walking up a trail.  This ascent isn’t difficult and we also had the assistance of trees to help pull ourselves up.  Normally we would have to spend another 30mins hiking up a trail and bushwhacking to get to the summit to set ropes.  By going the ice route we can be at the top within 15mins to start setting ropes.

I set off to climb the ice patch and worked my way over to the where I would be setting up the rope.  Since I was going to be soloing I would only need one rope.  The rope I was using is 60m long and had about 15ft to spare at the bottom.  Once I safely I secured the rope I used my figure 8 descender and also set a prusik knot up as a backup.  After checking and triple checking the setup and my gear I was ready to descend to the bottom.   It is quite unnerving descending on a single rope as it appears to stretch more and the feeling of control is not as secure as rappelling on a double rope setup.  Using a top rope setup requires 2 people and being that I was solo, single rope will have to do.

While I was rappelling over 125ft I had set the prusik knot to see how effective the knot would be.  My confidence was extremely high as it did exactly what it was suppose to do.  While I was rappelling, the weight of my body was engaging the knot without the assistance of me setting the knot and this confidence would be my downfall.  After a successful rappel I gathered myself to start the climb.

I remember listening to Radiohead looking up at what I was about to climb.  There was a calm that was all around.  A slight breeze, there were a couple of crows squawking above me, the air was fresh and the skies were cloudless and blue; I was ready to go.  I set the axes and crampons in the ice and begin my ascent.  At about the 15ft mark I realized that I had forgot to attach my headcam to record my first solo climb and inevitably my fall.  After down climbing, I setup my head cam and began the adventure again.  I must admit that there was a slight unease after I was at about the 30foot mark; however I wasn’t feeling the least bit tired.  Around that time it occurred to me that a fall may happen as ice is unpredictable, but I didn’t let that fear deter me from going up.  My axe and crampon placements were solid and I was feeling confident that I would make it to the first ledge to take a break and then decide if I was going to go the rest of the way.

At about the 55-60ft mark my forearms were getting pumped and I needed to slow down and take a rest, however just above me about 4 feet was the ledge.  I didn’t want to go any further for risking not placing my axes solidly and falling.  I decided to take a rest and just shake out my arms.  Doing this required setting the axe and holding on with one hand while shaking out the other and vice versa.  So I knew that I my axe placements were solid.  I had made the choice that I was going to have to rely on the prusik knot to allow me to hang there while I take a rest before I continued climbing.  I released the left axe first and then the right.

About 4 seconds later I am hanging at the bottom of the climb.  Before I go into what happened I will tell you first what saved my body from crumbling into the ground.  Since I was climbing a single rope I had decided to weight the bottom of the rope to prevent it from swaying and to also keep it as taut as possible.  I had attached a carbineer to the rope, attached my rope bag and filled it full of rocks.  This carbineer was no more than 4 feet off the ground.   When I came crashing down, my prusik knot caught the carabineer and stopped the rest of my body from hitting the ground.  The rope also stretched which took the shock of the landing from my body and back up the rope.

I am hanging at the bottoming dazed and breathing heavy.  I knew right away that there was something wrong with my ankles, but wasn’t able to determine exactly.  I knew that I hadn’t broke skin, I just knew right then and there, that I was going to be in some serious trouble if I didn’t get myself off the rope and to get myself to the hospital.   There was no screaming or swearing as I was falling.  It was like unconsciously I was using my axes to attempt to slow myself down, all the while not looking down.  A number of years ago I was skydiving and the instructor told us that when we landed, don’t look at the ground or else you would stiffen up, which could result in breaking your leg or worse.  So when I hit the ground I let my body collapse.  Between that and the knot I had only injured my ankles.

While hanging I made the attempt to stand to unhook myself from the rope and that is the only time I remember swearing.  I stood and collapsed which infuriated me because I now had to pull myself up the rope without the use of my legs, hang on with one hand and unclip my carabineer.  Once unclipped, I fell to the ground, slid down the embanking a few feet and laid there for a few moments to gather myself.  Once I had gathered myself I started to take my crampons off; well only one as I blew the other one off upon impact.  I realized that my backpack was up the embankment about 10 feet and well, I wasn’t going to leave any of my gear, so I got on my stomach and used my axes to pull myself up the slope, grabbed my pack and slid back down to where the rest of my stuff was.  My climbing gear is a source of pride and accomplishment, so I wasn’t about to leave it behind in the off chance that someone would come by and steal it.  The only stuff that I left behind (which was gathered later by Melanie and Matt) was my rope and the rope bag.  Once I packed everything up, I put the pack on and decided that the only way back to my jeep was to crawl on my hands and knees.

I needed to set myself some goals to make this trip and to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t get frustrated and possibly give up.  Since it was mid afternoon I knew that I had about 4 hours of daylight left. That was my goal; get back to the truck before it gets dark.

I must tell you at this point that there really wasn’t a lot of pain and I can honestly say that I wasn’t in a lot of shock.  I was completely aware as to what happened, what I did wrong and almost immediately started to process of getting out the situation I was in.  There were only a few moments along this crawl where I felt pain shoot through my leg and two of those moments was me attempting to stand.  I was already 1/2hr into the crawl and when I looked back to see my progress it looked like I hadn’t gone anywhere.  Determined, I stood up on one knee and hoisted myself to my feet.   I attempted to take a step and collapsed back onto the ice.  I knew right then that my chance of standing for the rest of this trip was out of the question, or so I thought.

After about an hour of crawling, my knees where getting quite sore and I was trying to figure out how I can minimize the pain, I tried to use my gloves as padding.  I had other gloves with me, so my hands where going to be cold.  However, I spent about 15mins adjusting the mitts under my knees because they kept coming off.  I didn’t want to lift my knees to high off the ground, because when I did my foot would hit the ground which caused some discomfort.  I abandoned the gloves, put them back on my hands and decided to tough it out.  During this first hour of crawling I kept checking my phone in the off chance that I would pick up a signal, even though I knew I wouldn’t get a signal till I was at the truck and halfway to the hospital.  It was a small comfort, even if it was disappointing.

We are about the 1.5hour mark and I am getting tired.  I thought I heard people talking loudly.  A couple days before Matt and I was climbing at this location and saw a couple of people on ATV’s so I thought that maybe they returned.  I yelled for help as loud as I could a few times and then listened.  Once again I was disappointed as the noise I heard were a few geese on the river.  Out of frustration I got myself onto my back and lied there facing the sun.  It was so warm and comforting.  My feet weren’t hurting that much and I just wanted to stay there for a bit.  I lasted maybe a couple of minutes before turning back onto my stomach to start crawling again.  I had to be out of there by dark.

As I rounded the corner of the lake I was in a little bay area where the visitors would launch their boats.  There were little patches of snow on the ice and lots of exposed ice.   My knees were taking a beating and I needed to take another rest.  I once again rolled over onto my back and got comfy.  It occurred to me that I am on exposed ice and that I may be able to drag myself across on my rear.  I unclipped my axes.  I sat up with my legs in front and pulled myself across patches of ice using my axes.  It was like for that short little while, things were ok and I was quickly, well as quickly as I could pull myself and crawl get to shore.

I had in my head that once I reached shore and started to crawl, that the crawl would be much easier and faster.  It was not the case.  The snow was granulated frozen icy snow.  Most of, if not all of the area was covered in frozen skidoo tracks.  I had to contend with a flat frozen surface pounding my knees and hands, now I had to crawl across uneven sharp frozen terrain.   While on the ice I didn’t experience much pain in my hands, but this would quickly change now that I was on land.

I had decided that once again I was going to try to walk.  I crawled away from the trail to some busted up brush to see if I could find a sturdy enough branch to make a crutch.  I did find something that would have been worked if I had only one injured ankle let alone two.  I made the attempt to stand.  The mind said yes and the body said no.  I didn’t even budge.  I crawled back to the trail and started my journey again.

One of the main issues I struggled with while crawling through this trail was that my knees and hands were getting incredibly sore.  There was a point where most of my crawling was done on the arms (from the elbow to the hand) which slowed my progress considerably.  During this crawl so far my feet haven’t really been in much pain.  There were more moments of pain on the trail because when I would move ahead, my knees would create an indent in the snow that when I dragged my knee up my foot would hit the hole and bounce a bit.  By this time I had been crawling for over 3 hours and the sun was setting.  There was still enough light that I didn’t need my headlamp on, but soon.  I knew that if for some reason that I had to stop for the night because I was too tired to go on that I would have been prepared.  I was surrounded by lots of dry wood, I had my lighter, first aid kit and an emergency blanket and most importantly I had water, two peanut butter sandwiches and a protein bar.

On the trail I was setting distance goals to go to where I would then take a break have a sip of water and keep going.  I refused to eat anything as that was my last goal when I arrived at my jeep was to relax in a comfy seat and eat a peanut butter sandwich.  At my last break it was getting dark and I was then starting to feel discouraged that I had not made it back to the truck before it was dark.  Being in the bush it is much darker than being in the open, but nonetheless it was dark.  I put my headlamp and looked around to see where I was and if there was anything identifiable that would let me know where I was in relation to my vehicle.  When I shone the light ahead a big I saw nothing but a big black shadow and was then feeling really discourage, because I thought I was rounding another bend and that I wasn’t even close to where I thought I was.  As I turned back over to sit down my light reflected off of something shiny.  It was the stop sign.  My truck was parked about 30feet from that stop sign.  My spirits were lifted as I was really close and yet there would be one more obstacle in the way that slowed my crawl.  It was gravel and pavement in front of me.  Crawling across that gravel and pavement had to have been the most painful part of the crawl.  It was so unforgiving and there was no way around it, other than to clench my jaw and just get it over with.   I had pressed the door unlock and heard the sweet sound of the door unlocking.  Finally I will be able to sit down and have something to eat.  Once I made it to my jeep there was another problem.  How was I to get myself into the driver’s seat?  Standing isn’t a problem and even then you have to hop up a bit to get in.  Here I am sitting on the ground looking up.  Fortunately there was a handle on the side of the door.  I reached up and grabbed that, plus the steering wheel and lifted myself into jeep.  I reached down, grabbed my pack, turned the radio on and ate my peanut butter sandwich.

I had to now get myself to the hospital which is over 70kms away and I have to badly injured ankles.  After my sandwich was eaten I decided that I would undo the left boot to relieve some of the pressure and tighten the right boot so that I could drive.  Fortunately mountaineering boots are similar to a downhill ski boot in terms of the rigidity.  There isn’t any left right movement and barely any up down, so all I had to do was to push on the gas pedal and barely any pressure was felt in my foot.  I started the truck and headed to the hospital.  During this whole time there hasn’t been any cell service and would get a signal for another 35kms.  The drive was uneventful and I just listened to the radio to not have to think about what had happened, as for the time being I was glad that it was over with.  I was wrestling with what to do and who to call.  Melanie (one of my climbing partners) lived near the highway and I debated on calling her, but I chose not too as I didn’t want to burden her.  Yes, I did get an earful from her.  I also came across the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) station just off the highway, but I figured by the time I explained what had happened and the paramedics get there I would be ¾ of the way to the hospital.  Also, I was thinking what would happen to my vehicle if I left it at the station.

I called my climbing partner Kurtis.  Kurtis and I have been climbing together almost every weekend and also helping out a guiding company based of Bracebridge, Ontario.  He asked how the climbing was.  I was then into my second peanut butter sandwich and nonchalantly told him that I busted my ankles and I need someone to meet me at the hospital because I can’t stand up.  Naturally he thought I was messing around, but quickly realized that I was not.  We joked about it and there was much silence on the phone as well.  I let him go and got in contact with my buddy Roger who was going to meet me at the hospital.  After that was settled, I finally had to break the news to my parents.  I called my parents and my mother answered the phone.  I explained to her that I had fallen, probably broke both my ankles and had crawled for almost 4 hours and am now on my way to the hospital.  She was obviously worried, but I was trying my best to assure her that I am ok and that I am in transit to the hospital and friends were meeting me there.  I then spoke to my father and told him that I had messed up bad and wasn’t too sure what the outcome of this was going to be.  I unfortunately told my father the condensed version of what happened and all night and until he had gotten to the hospital was expecting the worse.  I only told him that I had fallen 60feet, not that I had fallen but was still attached to the rope.  My parents arrived from Smiths Falls the following morning to only see my sitting up eating and laughing.  Not what they had expected.  Everyone was happy that for the time being I was alright and in good spirits.  I was in hospital over the next week still unsure as to what had happened to my ankles.  I was then told that I had a bilateral talus fracture.  Which later turned out to be a fracture in the left foot and broken in a few chunks in the other.  I was flown to Toronto to St Michaels Hospital and had surgery a few days later.  I was fortunate enough to have one of the best surgeons who specializes in major ankle trauma operate on me.  I stayed there a few days after to recover and then back to North Bay, which I then discharged myself and moved in with my parents for 7 weeks till I was able to get up and walk again.  I am going to fast forward a bit here as the story isn’t all that interesting, but it became a great time during the seven weeks I spent at my parents place.  I am 33yrs old and I have to go back to my parents place to live under their roof for an extended period of time.  I was unsure how the situation was going to work as I am now confined to a wheelchair.  There was the possibility of issues such as, am I able to take care of myself, how much work or help is going to be needed from my parents.  It turned out that not a lot was needed.  My father woodworks/carpentry by hobby, so outfitting the house with ramps was a breeze.  I was fortunate enough that there is a bathroom on the main floor which is where I was I sleeping, so there were no worries about that situation.  My mother and father as I did had a great time with each other.  I got to spend quality time with both in a way that I wouldn’t if I hadn’t have had this accident, at least not for an extended period of time.

Seven weeks after the accident I took my first step on crutches.  I was only and still as I write this allowed to be on my left foot as my right foot needs to be in the aircast for 3 months.  I have 4 screws, 2 in each foot and was very lucky that that was the only bones that broke.   I am now just finishing up week ten and I am progressing along nicely.  The road of recovery is still long, but the surgeon indicated that with the proper rehab and dedication that there isn’t any reason why by the next ice season I won’t be back on the ice.  I look forward to climbing ‘the snake’ again in Restoule Provincial Park, with a partner of course.

Phil.