~This article was first published on Crimpermag.com~

It was a little before 6:00am as I walked away from my loving parents, all hearts breaking as I took the last steps I would ever take on both legs. I would have liked to take these last steps somewhere I could remember with fondness, like the mountains my father and I had spent so much time in, as he taught me all about climbing and mountaineering. Somewhere that would be memorable in a good way. I realize now that it was these good memories -so many of them- that made this cold, long hallway, so full of stale white light, such a dark memory to me.

I had walked these halls a number of times but this time, as I walked away from my parents down that hallway with the doctor, there was something eerily dreamlike. It just didn’t feel real. I kept wondering if I was going to wake up. I wanted to wake up. I wished I would wake up now to my bed at home rather than wake up in a little over an hour to the blurry, slow developing view of a nurse and the very un-home like lights and ceiling that I had grown to detest with such passion.

I was a very active boy at the time with day dreams of becoming a sponsored athlete. Just the night before, I had been running, jumping and enjoying life as a normal teenager. I knew I could just as easily turn on my heels and run back down the hall, and away from the disabling operation I was ably walking towards. My entire life revolved around what I did in the outdoors. Walking down that hall felt more like the end to my life than it felt like the only chance at saving my life.

At the diagnosis of bone cancer in my left leg at age fourteen I was casual and confident about what would come of it all. I felt sure that the pain which had been developing for nearly a year now would be taken care of in a simple way, and that I would soon be back on top again. At first this is what the doctors led me and my parents to believe and hope for. Although the amputation was my choice, I still felt a little betrayed at the time of the surgery. Out of the three options I was given (four options if you include a rapid death), amputation seemed the most reasonable for what I wanted to do with my life. It was also the most drastic and non-reversible choice. My parents urged me to start with the artificial knee or the bone replacement, but I knew that with the complications involved, if I were to continue an active lifestyle, I would eventually end up at this point anyway. Knowing this I decided to cut to the chase (no pun intended) and get on with life. After a year of intense chemo-therapy I was determined to move forward with my choice, and there was no backing down.

Aside from the pain, my spirits were high through most of the following week in the hospital bed. An amputation brings on two kinds of pain; first, the surgical process of cutting skin, muscle, tendons and bone all in one area, then rolling all the nerve endings together in a concentrated wad of sensitive soreness, and second, that of what is most commonly referred to as ‘phantom pain.’ I can’t say which is worse. Both are worse than any other pain I had experienced before or since. These pains never completely go away. It’s been over twelve years now and I still endure the pains of a foot and leg that are no longer there. Fortunately, the mind develops a partial ability to cope with the loss, and the pains become less frequent. It takes a long time for this to happen though, and it’s a process that seems rather hopeless at times. Through all of this, my positive attitude was wearing thin.

One night, within a week of my return from the hospital, a friend called and asked if I was coming to the school dance. “I have one leg!” I replied. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I forgot. So, are you coming?” I declined somewhat annoyed, but as I lay there feeling sorry for myself, thinking of how I used to be the one leading the pack to these and other functions, I began to really think about what I was going to do with my life. I had chosen amputation for the sake of remaining active. So what was I doing at home?

That night and my friend’s phone call changed the direction in which I was allowing myself to drift. I made a firm decision to become just as active as I had been before. I decided that I would become better than I had been at the sports I had built my life around. I discovered a drive I had never known before and began putting it to work on new endeavors in the outdoors. I took up skiing and regained a love for the winter. I progressed quickly and was asked to race with the Park City Disabled Ski Team at the beginning of my second year skiing. During the summer I put over six hundred miles on my mountain bike with my crutches strapped to my back. I hiked with my crutches, ran races, went to dances, played tennis and even stole my mom’s standard transmission VW bus to go cruising with my best friend. Working the clutch with a crutch and driving a vehicle around before I was licensed to drive was oddly fulfilling to me. I became somewhat of an adrenaline-addicted recusant with an eye for the challenges others would turn down. This addiction strengthened the soul of my climber within, even though climbing wasn’t as much a part of my life as skiing was at that time.

Climbing was a minimal participation sport for me for a few years. This wasn’t without good reason. Not having control of my knee and lower limb caused a general instability on the wall. My technique consisted of finding a hold for each hand, spotting a higher foot hold, than hoping with my one good leg to that hold. I would repeat this tripod technique, my prosthesis dangling along, as I made my way up what ever face I was on. Although this technique worked, it was too dynamic to allow me to advance to more technical climbing.

The last climbing experience I had before my hiatus from stone, was on a secluded granite face was climbing with my dad. We were in British Columbia near the Bugaboo’s on a piece of rock that had most likely never been touched. My father handed me his rack and sprayed some beta on where to place pro. This was my first time placing my own protection. As I reached the top of the climb, I found a mossy rounded dirt mound about four feet high along the entire face of the wall. If only I could have high stepped with my left foot. I would have been able to get enough weight forward to mantle and sketch my way over the edge. This wasn’t even a consideration unfortunately, and I couldn’t find a foot hold big enough to trust my left leg on.

My last protection was knife blade and a piton in a vertical crack. They seamed solid when I put them in so I lowered a little than let go and dropped the remaining distance. As I passed my highest gear I fixed my eyes on it and I watched as I passed by, confident it would hold. My confidence was soon insulted by the double ping, ping of both pieces being stripped from the rock. “No worries” I thought. My next gear was three pieces placed in a horizontal line; one hex, a home made stopper and a piton. P-PING-POP!!! All three pieces pulled and I suddenly became very worried. The next piece was small and popped instantly throwing granite dust and small gritty chunks into the air above me.
You’d think I’d remember the piece that saved my life with more detail than those that had failed me, but all I remembered after the last piece popped, was sitting in the air, within arm’s reach of my dad. “Are you alright?” he asked seemingly more shocked than I was. I leaned forward in my harness and my feet touched the ground. As I stood up my rope hung loose with slack. My fall had been halted below waist level literally inches from the ground! I wasn’t really overly shaken up or disturbed by the fall. I just didn’t feel like it was all worth it when I had so many other things I could enjoy in the outdoors. I spent the summers on my mountain bike and continued to pursue skiing in the winter. By this point, I had gotten very involved with skiing and was racing on a national team at international competitions. Years later this interest led to my developing a specialized prosthetic leg which allowed me to become the first AK amputee Telemark skier in the world. Still no solid sponsors for my athletic endovors however, and my dream remained unfulfilled. jarem
About this time, old flames began to stir in the winds of life, like an old love who you’ve forgotten your reasons for leaving. I had long since abandoned the days of swami belts and piton breaker bars, yet it was the climbing of my youth that had grown true roots in the soil of my life. For some reason my mind took to recalling the cliffs I had climbed with my dad. I still climbed with him once in while. I just wasn’t as focused on it as I was with other sports. I began wondering why. I analyzed the challenges I faced in rock climbing.
jarem As I began to lay things out in my mind, I realized that these challenges could be mostly overcome by using the leg I had designed for skiing. I went to work on making a good climbing foot and I bought my first pair of real climbing shoes and a chalk bag. I had received a harness for my birthday a few years before, but that was the extent of my own gear. I had a friend who had recently gained interest in sport climbing, which made both a rope and a partner available to me.

Although I owed my parents money and was falling behind on paying them off, I took every pay check to the local climbing shop and spent more than was ethical at each visit. I would return home, hiding my new gear, and hand over what money I had left. At the time I was working just a few minutes from Rock Canyon, Utah, where my dad had spent every spare moment he had had at my age, climbing new routes back when there was only about thirty routs established. Now there are over three hundred sport and trad routes there. Every day at lunch I would head up the canyon to boulder around for an hour just to build strength. I progressed quickly and was soon faced with the problem of being held back by my less enthusiastic friends. It was fulfilling to be esteemed as an equal or even the elite climber in my group of able bodied friends. I felt like I was a pioneer on a new frontier. I felt like was earning something only I deserved, yet there was something more about climbing, something still drawing me further in, some kind of challenge that wasn’t met by simply climbing better than my friends. This ‘something’ didn’t care if my friends respected me or not. It was something deeper which had been earned and given life by many great men and women who had overcome greater challenges than mine. It was something earned by climbers that had sacrificed more, invented more, dared more and walked more steps into the unknown.

I had accomplished one thing; I had done what others thought impossible. That’s been done plenty of times by people with no tricks to make others think they can’t do something. I had invented a prosthetic leg that was revolutionary in its enabling design. I had become the first in the world to tele ski with an AK amputation. I had learned to wake board, snow board and climb as naturally as I would with two legs, yet, the mountains showed me no respect.
I have searched hard to find the answer to my dilemma. I have worked to find what climbing is all about. I have pushed my abilities to new levels once never thought possible by even the best climbers with fully able bodies. I have established new climbs, designed climbing gear, competed and placed well in competitions and made myself a part of the community. I have even fulfilled my dream of becoming a sponsored athlete thanks to Mad Rock and Trango who I thank greatly. In all of this though, I find that there is something still missing. As I analyze the sport, the lifestyle, the dream; I notice that climbing more than any other sport has it’s legends that never put it down. Perhaps they face the same broken puzzle feeling that I do. Perhaps there is a piece missing to them as well. Perhaps this is why we come back, ever searching for satisfaction in a realm that is ultimately fulfilling yet never satisfied. Climbing will never end for most of us. There will always be a new challenge and new rewords. We will always be able to meet new challenges and face new experiences. We will always have new accomplishments while maintaining a tick-list of accomplishes yet to conquer. amputee

So now I find myself walking down an unfamiliar hallway once again. The difference this time is that I’ve learned to embrace the unknown as an opportunity to know more about life and about myself. I am thankful that life gives me the challenges I don’t have the courage to give myself, and that it rewords me for the challenges I do seek out. May our hallways pass in many directions and may we each find our pot of gold along the way!

God bless!

Jarem Frye.