More Than Able

“Joe said, ‘Let’s see if you can walk,’” says DeMartino. “I just started walking. Now I could bike again. Now I could ski again. Now I could chase the kids in the backyard if I wanted to. Now I could run and bounce on a trampoline with them.”

Crafting a new foot for climbing was trickier. They began with the standard-sized artificial foot and a regular climbing shoe. However, without the fine motor skills that one’s ankle provides, the force DeMartino placed on the standard climbing shoe’s rubber was too much. Every climbing day resulted in a blownout shoe. He reached out to double-amputee Hugh Herr, who had redpointed 5.13 gear routes with specially designed feet. DeMartino took Herr’s feedback and began scribbling designs on scratch paper. Johnson experimented with different alloys. After several attempts, the climbing foot became what it is today: the size of a 6-year-old’s, and almost flat in the front to distribute pressure and avoid blowouts.

With his tools refined, DeMartino went to work. For the first year, the orthopedist begged him to stay off the sharp end of the rope; his left foot and vertebrae were still too early in the healing process to risk an awkward fall.

Mentally, DeMartino devised a plan he simply called “The List.” He compiled a tick list of 10 climbs he had done with two legs that he wanted to repeat. Some were relatively easy local routes like Combat Rock’s Diagonal (5.9), which was the first climb he did with Cyndy. There were his favorite boulder problems like Punk Rock Traverse (V5) at Horsetooth Reservoir, which he used to be able do in tennis shoes. And of course, there was El Cap, which he first climbed in 1998. Today, The List is an ever-evolving string of local routes, fingery boulder problems, and lifelong objectives. It has moved well beyond old, familiar routes into new territory.

The text chimed. I did a double take at my phone.

“Jarem’s leg fell off. We are headed down.”

In the last update I had received from James Q Martin, the photographer covering DeMartino and Jarem Frye’s all-disabled attempt on El Cap, the duo had been making steady progress on the slabby, reachy bolt ladders that guard the meat of the 2,000-foot Lurking Fear. Then Frye’s leg slipped from the socket and became precariously tangled in the ropes. The team delicately retrieved it, but the leg refused to stay attached. Five hundred feet up El Capitan’s western flank, DeMartino and Frye were still a long ways from the comfort of the valley floor.

I waited for an update. When the phone rang, I hoped I wouldn’t hear disappointment or self-pity in DeMartino’s voice. There was a lot of pressure to succeed: The attempt was being photographed; National Geographic was hoping to write about it on its website; and sponsors had helped make the trip possible.

“We tried. We just couldn’t get the leg to work,” DeMartino said. “The good thing is that El Cap isn’t going anywhere. I’m going to take a rest day and meet up with Hans [Florine] for the Nose in a day.”

Three days later, I got another text, this time from the summit: “13 hours!” It was the first time an amputee had successfully climbed the Nose in a day, but DeMartino only mentioned being really happy and very worked. He kept talking about the Pancake Flake’s crisp, exposed laybacking and the splitter dihedral pitches. Leading in timed blocks, DeMartino led a third of the route, and then chased Nose speed-climbing legend Florine on the remainder of the pitches. It was completion of a goal that predated the accident.

DeMartino thinks of his climbing career in two parts, pre- and post-accident. “Pre-accident,” he says, “I did a lot, but I also kind of took it for granted. Now I’ve done some amazing things and been able to go places that, had I never gotten hurt, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go do.

“I’ve had multiple people ask me, ‘If you could back up and change everything, would you go back and not have the accident?’” he continues. “And it sounds really stupid, but I wouldn’t change it now. The better of the two climbers is the climber today.”

Fitz Cahall is the creator of The Season 2, an online video series that follows DeMartino through his El Cap efforts. Visit climbing.com/photo-video/av to see the series. Since working on this story, Cahall has vowed to never whine about nagging injuries.