“Injury, Drugs, and Other Dirty Secrets.” Climbing Magazine Column. July 2010.

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“I’m on drugs. It’s best to get this out in the beginning. This is not by choice. I’d like to say that this would all be more fun if it were by choice — if I were having a Hunter S. Thompson moment in my writing career. But, as you will soon understand, I would make a very pathetic Hunter S. Thompson. Even saying that makes me shudder.
Here are the facts: 12 years ago, I fell off a ladder. One month ago, I had back surgery, and I was doing just fine for the first two days. I was in a perfect haze of morphine and Valium, and my mother was taking care of me in the mountain town of Frisco, Colorado, close to the hospital. Thus, we often saw other people with various forms of casts, and blank, druggy eyes. The various accoutrements of a spring ski town were nice distractions, and there was no climbing in sight. That suited me fine — I’d been told it would be three months before I was ready for anything vertical…”