or nearly four months since my fall off Mount Temple. After so much time, there is much to dwell on. The negatives: the pain of so many fractures, the sleeplessness, the drugs and the messed up things they do to you. It’s easy to get stuck in the negative; yet some part of me is drawn there by some morbid fascination.

    So on to the positives. The things I wouldn’t have done if I had not been hurt. Banal things like floating the Deschutes River on a hot day because, well, why not? Visiting my Mom and going to my niece and nephew’s swim lessons. (Long lost are the days where I could pick up new skills in 30 minutes as they can.) I travelled to Baker City, Oregon to watch and support my good friend and climbing partner Mark Twight in a bicycle stage race known as the Elkhorn Classic. He went into the final stage wearing the pink leader’s jersey, threw his chain on the initial climb, and the peloton dropped him. Watching him solo for forty miles over three big climbs warmed my heart in a familiar way; some part of me loved watching him try, suffering well. I know that he, like me, is nourished by such experiences. And there’s the nearly completed greenhouse Jeanne and I are building onto the side of our garage. I have trouble imagining having ever finished that had I not fallen.

    Some time ago a friend asked me how I was coping with my anger about my accident. I was surprised and told him that I felt no anger, he questioned me in a disbelieving way. I stood still, trying to intuit how I felt about my fall.

    “Disappointment and relief,” was my response, “in nearly equal parts.”

    Disappointment because I was going so well; I had climbed well in the weeks before my accident; redpointing 5.13 and soloing WI 6. I was strong in mind and body, and getting stronger every week.

    Relief is more complex. I feel free to make plans past August, when I was due to return from K2. A new route on K2 is not Everest with fixed ropes across even the flattest glacier. K2 brings the risk that one misstep, one mis-calculation, or simple bad luck could end my life. I’m not trying to be dramatic; this shit weighs on me. Once I decide to go on an expedition like that I think about it every day. It makes it impossible to make plans for Thanksgiving.

    I did not expect to meet my demise on Mount Temple, on a training-climb. A simple winter excursion in the Canadian Rockies, one chosen because it was close to the road, because it fit with the avalanche conditions and our weather window. Here is where hubris steps in.

    I fell because I was 100% sure I would not fall. Or at least I fell such a distance, around eighty feet, for that reason. I did not give as much attention to my protection as I would have if I was scared or intimidated by the pitch. I wasn’t scared at all. Quite the opposite: I was rushing. I was climbing as if I couldn’t fall. As if I was invincible. I was being cocky.

    It’s true what they say, that the bigger they are, the harder they fall. I now know how big I am.

    Some part of my mind rationalizes my accident, thinking of the fall as another step along the road of an alpinist. I was due. I’d gotten away with a lot already. My number was up. But each of us believes that you’ll be the lucky one. I compare it to a soldiers’ fear of being shot. Every day they go out on patrol they’re afraid. When they see a friend get his head blown off, they may never get over it. They also see that many survive. Some part of their mind rationalizes it: Why won’t the right combination of luck and smarts see them through? So too did I fear falling off, up high, in the big alpine. And so too did I half-expect to fall and get hurt. Eventually. Maybe. Probably. I am now happy I that have a 'good wound'. Once I will recover completely from. This time.

    How big am I then? Not very.

    I made a mistake, a pretty small mistake. Or more honestly, I made a series of pretty small mistakes. I almost died for these transgressions. I would have died if it had not been for a cell phone and the chain of events it was able to put into motion. (I’ve owned a cell phone for barely six years.) I might not have died that very day, March 25, 2010, but from where we were, we were a long, long way from the medical care my injuries demanded: a trained trauma surgeon in an Emergency Room. Perhaps I would have lasted one night. Maybe not. It changes my perspective about what a day means. Carpe diem no longer seems some frat-boy cry to party. Today, means everything.