Injury Frustration

Since getting back from the Dominican, I've had a lot of free time, and I've been trying to focus my energy on climbing. I've been in the gym every single day since getting back, and would love to climb more and and for longer, but I've got a really annoying finger injury. The pulley in my right hand middle finger is inflamed. I think I picked it up in Smith, but it didn't seem too bad at the time, pocket pulling in the Dominican didn't help, and now that I'm climbing in the gym all the time its gotten a lot worse. I've applied an anti-inflamatory gel to it, and have been icing it and taping it when climbing. I know what I really need to do is rest it, but not climbing right now doesn't seem like an option. I'm in a time crunch because I'm headed on a trip down to Bishop with friends on the 26th-3rd, and really want to be able to climb hard without the pain then, but its asking a lot to recover from this in such a short period of time. Thoughts?

Dominic in the Dominican

I'm back from a two week visit to the Dominican Republic. It was quite a shock to go from snow and rain here in Olympia, to the sun and heat of Santo Domingo. It was really interesting visiting such a different city, but it seemed to me such a chaotic place. Driving around was scary, the drivers pay little attention to the rules of the road. I was wondering how there weren't more traffic accidents, then one night we were hit twice, and a couple of days later we witnessed the aftermath of a terrible accident where are car was wrecked so bad it was split clean in two 50 yards apart, and the drivers dead body was lying in the middle of the road for everyone to see.

I do bring back a lot of good memories though. Scuba diving with my dad was really fun, the water was probably the warmest I've dove in. And I played a lot of beach volleyball at a resort we stayed at for a few days, which was awesome, I really wish the weather was good here for beach volleyball. My sisters wedding (which was the main reason I was over there) was beautiful, she looked great in her wedding dress.



Me and my big sister Luisa



And I even managed to get some climbing in there as well. I met up with some Dominican climbers and they showed me the local crag, which was actually really sweet. It was a short steep limestone cliff stacked with stalactites, tufas, and pockets galore. It was tough climbing in the heat and humidity, but I managed to get up a bunch of 5.10's and 11's. A big thank you to the Santo Domingo climbing community for showing me around. If anyone is looking for information about the climbing there, look up the dominicanclimbing yahoo group and they will take care of you. Unfortunately I broke my camera early in the trip so not much photos, you'll just have to use your imagination.