Last summer Liam Hutchinson fell 11 metres whilst rock climbing in Langcliffe Quarry, a limestone crag in the Craven district of North Yorkshire.
He'd been climbing outdoors for just over a year. He first discovered the sport on a city break in Edinburgh with his girlfriend. They had been looking for something to do in the city. After one session he was hooked.
He progressed rapidly.
He'd hired a van for the day to transport himself, other climbers and the bulk of his trad-climbing gear to the spot.
Sport climbing involves secure bolts being put into the wall which act as anchors, protecting the climber from falls. Trad (or Traditional) climbing is where the climber clips gear into crevices as they climb, removing it when the climb is finished.
Langcliffe Quarry is logged on the UK climbing site as providing 'stimulating' climbing and offers the climber, as Liam put it, "lots of fingery holds."
But when Liam, still relatively new to trad climbing, couldn’t find the right spot to place his gear, he came unstuck.
"I started climbing and couldn't find a spot to place my gear. I kept climbing at around 5 metres because it was easy going to a spot at 11 metres. But when I got there, I pulled on a hold and it broke off. I fell backwards, 11 metres down."
After picking himself up off the ground, Liam dusted himself off and climbed a number of easy routes before he called it a day: "I didn't want to be afraid of climbing trad again, so I made myself shake it off and climb afterwards or I knew I'd be scared to get climbing again if I left it."
"It hurt quite a lot, but was worth it. I then took 3-4 weeks off to heal up."
Staring into his post-climb coffee, Liam paused and replayed the fall in his head. He then told me that he'd found it more frustrating snapping his pulley tendon in his ring finger. This had stopped him from climbing at his best for months.
"To be honest, I'd rather take a fall again and a few cuts and bruises rather than popping a pulley."
Many who partake in extreme sports describe near misses and close calls with this level of nonchalance; perhaps as a way to compartmentalise the danger. Or with climbers, maybe because they know the fate of falls like this is quite literally out of their hands.
Either way, for climbers injuries, heights and occasional pain is what they signed up for.
"I felt like a dead man as I was falling. Then when I hit the ground it was onto a slope, so after the really hard impact, I started tumbling uncontrollably. I didn't feel anything at first, but expected the pain was coming and that I was going to be hurt, potentially even paralysed."
Liam started climbing around two years ago and reached a level of competency that usually takes half a decade to get to. A highly skilled BMXer in his youth, Liam has always mastered the hobby he chose and surpassed most of his friends in the pursuit of it.
The 27 year-old, now studying an MSc in Fire and Explosion Engineering at Leeds University, has also tried his hands at downhill biking. So rock climbing seemed like a natural progression for somebody who likes his sports adrenaline-fuelled, where a combination of physicality and intelligence are required to succeed.
He admitted that he'd not been trad climbing since the fall but he had not written it off and was still sports climbing often.
But with summer looming, he knows the temptation will be all too much: "I do feel trad climbing is climbing in its purest form."
Having just had a child with his girlfriend, he realises just how precious life is and that the risks involved with climbing are real.
Liam stressed it was his human error that caused the fall and whatever style of climbing he does in the future, he'll do so with more thought and less complacency.
To say that sport climbing is completely risk free, however, is something Dan Sherwood would refute.
His fall happened in Tenerife on a 3 day climbing holiday in El Rio. The weather had improved on the second day and he was looking forward to pushing himself with some difficult climbing.
"I warmed up on a couple of positive gradient slabs, we decided to pack up and move further up the valley where the opportunity to push myself was there for the taking."
The route he fell on, Al Pil Pil, had a climbing grade of 6b. He didn't feel it was that technical, but was a step up to the climbing he'd done on the first day of the holiday.
Off to a confident start, he'd clipped the first bolt with ease. But as the climb progressed he realised the footholds all but disappeared and the hand holds became incredibly crimpy - meaning the protruding rock where he could get any purchase were small and only deep enough to fit the tips of his fingers into.
His friends at ground level were throwing up words of encouragement.
This filled him with adrenaline and the desire to go on. To dig deep and find the stamina and finger strength that had all but gone.
He slipped from the wall.
As he came sliding down, there was a prominent part of the wall he hadn't really taken any notice of when he'd climbed up and and over it.
His right foot hit this ledge. He felt it crunch and knew it was broken.
He'd later find out that he'd broken his medial malleolus; the end bone of the tibia which runs down the inside of the leg.
"I'd say the risks are absolutely worth it. For me it's the purest the sport can get and when it's done correctly, with the right knowledge and understanding, you're as safe as you make yourself."
Since the fall, Dan has had time to contemplate it and feels a conversation he'd had with a climbing guide in Tenerife, was particularly relevant to his set of circumstances.
The guide had told Dan that in the past he'd thought his climbing processes were the best they could be. But during his training to become a climbing instructor and guide in Tenerife, it became apparent that what he'd been previously taught was wrong in some cases.
Dan felt this was illustrative of how knowledge and practice were essential for removing the more serious of risks from climbing: "I guess it just goes to show that people pick up bad habits and there is a potential for everything to go wrong if people don't know what they're doing."
Despite having to limp around for a number of months, Dan is eager to get back climbing and running. "Being unable to run or climb is torture." He also told me the injury had made him appreciate how lucky he was to be able-bodied.
For both climbers, it will only be a matter of time before they're clipped into a harness and back hanging off the side of a cliff-face.
