Some trips are pure joy—full of climbing, good conditions, and great vibes. Others can be the exact opposite. And, as Murphy's Law says: "Everything that can go wrong will go wrong!"

I believe sharing experiences that aren't necessarily positive is just as important—if not more—than only sharing the good ones. Because the truth is, not everything always goes the way you wish.

So, here's my story about one climbing trip where everything went wrong.

First, I want to say something positive. From the moment we arrived in Austrian Silvretta and had our first session, I fell in love with the local granite. It's an amazing material to climb on. Yes, it takes some time for your skin to adapt because the friction is insanely good, but it's worth it!

I actually started the trip by flashing a really nice boulder graded 7B. Then I went straight to the boulder I had dedicated this whole trip to—Anam Cara 8B+. An amazing boulder, by the way—perfect style for me, as I discovered after flashing the middle part. The first session went really well, and by the end of it, I had climbed the whole boulder except for the first move.

The plan for the next sessions was to link the whole boulder without the first move and then go back to the start and give the first move a proper try. But the weather became our biggest enemy from day one—it was basically raining all the time, and only very occasionally we got short windows of good weather.

The weather decided what day and even what hour we went to the rocks, and most of the time, we still ended up climbing in quite heavy rain. Anam Cara is fortunately basically a huge roof, so it was possible to climb even in the rain, but the humidity in the route wasn't ideal. Sometimes the rock dried naturally, and other times we had to help it with fans just to make a few attempts on the upper part of the boulder. It just wasn't ideal.

Still, I kept working on the project and got really close to doing the first move. I knew that once I managed to do the first move, I'd have a good chance of sending the whole thing—or at least having a proper fight for it.

Then came the last day. I was a bit nervous. It was my last attempt on Anam Cara, and my goal was simple: do the first move.

To get the moves deeper into my muscle memory, I usually start from the ground. If I miss the first move, I continue with the other moves. That day, I was feeling strong on individual parts of the boulder. But then, on the powerful and crimpy undercling move, I suddenly heard a sound like snapping a small twig.

And just like that, the trip was over.

It was my last climbing day anyway, but still... it could have ended better. I'm trying to just take it as it is, and even though I freaked out quite a bit in the moment, I knew that in a few weeks I'd hopefully be fit again. I guess I just needed to let those emotions out before focusing on the next steps—recovery and working on my weaknesses.

It was a good trip. And even with my injury, I proved to myself that I can link hard moves and feel strong enough on an 8B+ boulder. Who knows what could have happened if the weather and my health had been on my side?

It's been a week since the finger joint injury. I'm already feeling much better, my finger is improving every day, and I believe I'll come out of this even stronger.
Janča