What do pro climbers do when injury sidelines them?

Injuries can be a big mixed blessing for climbers, especially the super-obsessed, pro-grade, variety. On the one hand, the injured climber can’t climb, which is obviously very frustrating. On the other, with no way to follow through on their obsession, the injured climber is forced/allowed to finally get after all those other plans he or she has been formulating for years. And getting a chance to do non-climbing things can open up new worlds, as the filmmaker Josh Lowell found out. An injury is what originally led him to pick up a video camera and start filming his buddies, resulting in the Gunks-bouldering vid Big UP, and the start of a long and fruitful filmmaking career. I caught up with four recently injured pros, to see how they’re doing and what they’re up to while they’re out of commission.

Climber:
Dave Graham

Injury: Rolled his ankle while forerunning semifinals problems at the Bouldering World Cup, in Vail. “I did the Men's #3 bloc,” recalls Graham, “with this wild dyno to the ending hold, stuck that hold, and then proceeded to drop down like usual.” When he landed, he says, his leg went between the pads, tweaking his ankle hard. “I feel like I am cursed or something,” he says.

Status: Weeks later, the pain remains, so Graham gets around on crutches. “I ended up actually breaking the pad, and almost breaking my foot and ankle,” he says. Mid June, Graham headed to Ceüse, France. “[The injury] is frustrating,” says Graham, “but it will be more frustrating when I go to the airport on crutches.”

In the meantime: “I do the physical therapy stuff, organize this company [The Island] that I'm trying to start, work on the development of the website for it, and organize the film we’re starting to make as soon as we arrive in Europe.”

Moral of the story: No good deed goes unpunished.