After Sarah Larcombe fell off Arapiles, healing her bones was just the beginning
SOURCE:ABC Australia|BY:Jon Healy
When Sarah Larcombe fell off Mount Arapiles in February, she thought she just sprained her ankle. What followed was months of ups and downs ending in a stunning world championships result.
Sarah Larcombe was hanging from a wall at an Australian climbing team camp in June.
Tired and unable to continue, the rope and harness caught her as she let go, as it had done thousands of times before.
But this time, when she was released from the wall, something felt different.
"I fell, immediately started crying and was probably inconsolable for the next 15 minutes," the two-time paraclimbing world championships silver medallist said.
"I didn't completely know why I was crying."
The answer could be found five months earlier at Dyurrite in western Victoria, when Larcombe was hanging in a similar position, but this time more than 50 metres above the Wimmera plains.
The last piece of gear Larcombe was able to place was quite a distance from where she fell. (Supplied: Claire Williams)
She came to a roof on the Kachoong route on Mount Arapiles, where the formation juts out at a right angle, and climbers have to make their way through some 3 metres of completely overhung climbing, out and over a lip.
The orange quartzite frames the climber's ascent and extreme body positions perfectly. And with the long-since dried bed of Mitre Lake shining white in the background, it's the site of glorious photographs for countless chalked-up thrillseekers.
Claire Williams, photographer and editor of Vertical Life Magazine, was there with Larcombe in February but says her days photographing the famous line are now done.
"That was the second time, and I think maybe the last, given what happened," she said.
Kachoong on Mount Arapiles requires climbers to navigate a few metres of overhang before reaching the summit. (Supplied: Claire Williams)
Larcombe "cruised the bottom part of the route", watched intently by her climbing buddies.
She made it through the roof section as she had done a handful of times before and tried to find somewhere to place another quickdraw to clip in to before starting up the headwall.
She had fallen from the lip on earlier attempts, but this time she was a victim of her own success.
The more progress she made, the further away she got from her last piece of protection, the riskier things became.
Larcombe has a prosthetic on her right leg. (Supplied: Claire Williams)
As she tried to establish her feet under her, she says, "It's hard to know what happened, but I think that I slipped."
Her arms, already burning with lactic acid, were in no position to catch her full body weight, and momentum carried her out into space.
As the pendulum swung in, her rope pivoted around the last clip about halfway through the horizontal roof section, and Larcombe came flying back towards the wall.
It's a common occurrence while trad or sport climbing, and the aim is always to connect with both feet to share the force of the contact. But on this unexpected fall, that wasn't possible.
"I made impact with the heel of my left foot, my left leg was fully extended, and I was kind of upside down," Larcombe said.
"I couldn't really see the wall coming, and I don't think I could really brace for it appropriately, so I hit the wall with my leg fully extended without any bend or cushion in the knee."
It was a rough one, but such is the life of an elite climber — climb, fall, learn, climb again.
"I thought maybe I'd twisted my ankle or jarred it, and I sat there for about 15 minutes just trying to compose myself, and I actually said to my belayer, 'Hey, I feel OK, maybe I'll try this again,'" she said.
"Then I tried to stand up, and I couldn't stand."
Williams said the assumption from Larcombe, and therefore the rest of the crew, was a sprained ankle.
"She did not show the pain," Williams said.
"It was definitely discomfort, but she is so strong … Her pain tolerance is insane."
Her job as snapper finished for the day, Williams became part of the team tasked with getting Larcombe off the mountain, made more difficult by the unsteady terrain and Larcombe's injury to her left leg.
Being carried out was one of the only options after Larcombe's injury. (Instagram: ifsclimbing)
Williams kept Larcombe's spirits and blood sugar high by administering a course of lollies and water while her belayer lugged her off the mountain in a painful and precarious firefighter's carry.
"He's stumbling over rocks, and I'm praying he doesn't drop me or my head doesn't hit something," Larcombe said.
Finally back at the campsite, someone happened to have ice packs and a pair of crutches she could borrow, and eventually she was transported to hospital in Horsham, where she initially reported her pain as a 3/10.
"I was sitting in the waiting room eating a box of Shapes, thinking I've just twisted my ankle and I need to get checked out and maybe get some painkillers and get back on the road back to Melbourne," she said.
"But before I knew it, they were putting me in a neck brace, and I was immobilised on a bed and not allowed to move for 48 hours."
As it turned out, that swing into the wall — making first with her left leg rather than the prosthetic she uses on her right — had broken her heel, her tibia up near her knee, and the L2 vertebra in her lower back.
After two nights in Horsham, she was flown to The Alfred in Melbourne on the Tuesday, went under the knife to have plates and pins put in her knee the following day and was discharged two days later to start her rehabilitation journey.
Larcombe's left tibia was broken up near her knee. (Supplied: Sarah Larcombe)
The unique challenge of breaking your only 'meat leg'
It was not the first time Larcombe set off on the difficult task of healing what she casually calls her "meat leg".
During Larcombe's first session in her first pair of climbing shoes, soon after discovering the sport, she was flung from the wall while bouldering just a few metres off the ground in a gym.
Every induction into bouldering stresses landing on two feet with your knees bent and falling back onto the padded mats to cushion the impact, but Larcombe's fall was unexpected and off an overhang.
With little time to react, she had landed hard on completely straight knees, and with so much weight going through her left leg, her ankle was broken.
Her doctor told her it was "the most simple break you could possibly have".
"But when you're a right leg amputee, any type of injury to the opposite leg is pretty devastating," she wrote in 2022.
When she asked that doctor about her entitlements to physiotherapy and the rehabilitation process to strengthen her left leg as quickly as possible, Larcombe remembers the response being somewhat dismissive: "You won't need any of that, it's fine".
"So, three weeks later I was able to walk again, but the memory that sticks with me, I was in my kitchen, and I tried to stand up on my tippy toes to get a cup out of the cupboard, and I just couldn't take the weight of my body in that stance," she said.
That prompted her to go out and find her own physiotherapist and pay out of pocket to start the rehabilitation process anew.
The experience was a harsh lesson for her to be more vocal and proactive in finding out what she could and should be doing.
"And it gave me the ability to advocate for those things," she said.
Also aiding her in the first steps on her long road was an email that arrived just a day or two after coming off Kachoong.
While in Horsham, Larcombe found out she had been upgraded to the top level of support from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) as a "podium" level athlete.
Her first thought as she lay in hospital was: "I've screwed this up, I'm in big trouble here", but the AIS and Victorian Institute of Sport supported her with the cost and planning for her rehab to get her active and up on the wall again.
Larcombe has won one paraclimbing World Cup event and finished second nine times. (Supplied: Nakajima/Timmerman/World Climbing)
Sport Climbing Australia extended an invite to a team camp in May as a bit of a morale booster, but taking a climber to a wall when they can't even touch a hold is effectively a form of torture.
By the time of the next camp in June, she felt physically ready but had no idea of the damage to her psyche.
"You can really track where you're at with the physical stuff in the gym. It's a lot harder to do that mentally," she said of the day she was brought to tears by an otherwise routine fall.
"I didn't realise that's not something I had processed until the first Australian team training camp I participated in.
Even at the internationally approved minimum of 15 metres, indoor lead walls are dwarfed by many outdoor climbs. (Supplied: Nakajima/Timmerman/World Climbing)
"That's kind of what made me realise I hadn't fully processed the mental and emotional trauma that came with that [Kachoong] accident.
"It was a blessing in disguise that that [team camp fall] happened in such a safe environment for me."
The physical work continued from that point on, but with a renewed focus on making sure she was "mentally and emotionally ready" to be back on the wall.
The NSW state championships gave Larcombe her first taste of competition climbing since her whipper, albeit essentially in a field of one, and just in time, too.
A month later, having missed the entire international season, the 38-year-old stepped straight into the world championships in Seoul, South Korea.
Almost exactly seven months after that fateful and painful day on Mount Arapiles and four months since she started climbing again, Larcombe was ready to duke it out with long-time French rival Lucie Jarrige.
There was still time for one more obstacle as she got hit hard by tonsillitis and spent most of her warm-up time for finals flat on her back, icing her throat.
But, despite still struggling to sit in one position for long periods of time or walk as far as she used to without needing a break, Larcombe won her second silver medal in as many years, finishing just 4.5 moves behind the six-time world champion.
Climbing will make its Paralympic debut in 2028. (Supplied: Nakajima/Timmerman/World Climbing)
"In terms of my recovery time, it was pretty quick, bordering on miraculous," she said.
"But that was a result of a lot of hard work and support and most certainly not a miracle."
Next year will feature three more World Cups before a world championships in 2027, followed by the sport's first bow at the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
Larcombe is hoping in that time she's not only closed the gap to Jarrige, but overtaken her for that first step on the podium.
Larcombe (left) is working towards taking down French rival Lucie Jarrige (centre) as they build to the 2028 Paralympics. (Supplied: International Federation of Sport Climbing)
As for her future out in the wilds, Larcombe returned to Arapiles for the first time just a few days ago, but has no plans to get back on Kachoong anytime soon.
"People ask me this all the time, some people even asked me have I done it yet, which I just think is insane," she said.
"I'm really looking forward to just getting back on rock and finding some joy in outdoor climbing and spending some time with my friends.
"Kachoong is on the cards for the future at some point, but I most certainly don't have any plans to do it any time soon."