Growing up in Belmont, Melissa Strong dreaded gym class.
It didn’t help, of course, that she had a teacher she didn’t particularly like, and the feeling—she believed—was mutual. She described running laps during the school day as “torture.”
Now, years later, Strong wonders what that same teacher, who once graded her a “C,” would think of her accomplishments as a sponsored climber, particularly one who persevered despite a near-fatal accident that resulted in partial loss of one of her hands.
“You don’t have to be a high school or college athlete to find a love of being outside in your sport,” she said. “It still might come to you.”
Strong, now a resident of Estes Park, Colorado, shares her story in her new memoir, “Climbing Through: A Courageous Story of Grit, Healing, and Second Chances.”
The Belmont native wasn’t immediately called to rock climbing; in fact, she admits to a fear of heights. But after a few years “living like [she] was still in college,” Strong reached out to a friend and said she was ready to take her up on her offer to join her on a climb. She took up golf lessons that same day, she recalled.
“To me, [climbing] was figuring out the sequences and the movement on the rock,” Strong said. “That’s the part of it I really love most. I did start on a rope, and eventually I got more into bouldering, which is a more pure form of climbing. It’s just you and your own sequence and the pieces of the puzzle.”
Strong was preparing for the opening of her first restaurant when the accident happened. On April 2, 2017, she was finishing custom woodworking for the dining tables using a process called the Lichtenberg method, which burns designs into wood with high-voltage electricity. In a moment of absent-mindedness, Strong grabbed both clamps, electrifying herself. Despite what her brain was telling her hands to do, she was unable to let go, and her life was saved by a tripped breaker.
“The initial diagnosis was I’d only have four fingers— two indexes, and two pinkies,” she said. “At that time, I was a sponsored rock climber … We had fashioned our entire lives around rock climbing.”
For a while, she couldn’t even think of rock climbing. Instead, she focused on recovery, which included eight surgeries and 38 days in the hospital.
“It was extreme amounts of pain… it was quite the long and painful journey,” Strong recalled.
Six months after the accident, she did her first indoor climb.
“It filled me with hope and joy … that maybe I can get better at this,” she said.
A graduate of Loyola University New Orleans with a degree in literature, Strong soon turned to writing. She felt like everybody could use a little inspiration, so she began writing her memoir.
“You don’t need to burn your hands off to be going through a hard time,” she said. “Whether it’s losing a loved one or a difficult physical or health diagnosis, or back pain … I wanted to share how I got through this difficult time. None of us know that we have what it takes to get through a hard time if we haven’t been faced with it.”
With her new memoir, Strong hopes to share a story of hope and inspiration.
“I had to weave a safety net to keep me out of the pit of despair,” she said. “I hope that what I share can be fabric in somebody else’s safety net that’s going through a hard time.”
Strong continues to climb, if not quite as much as she used to, and she still plays golf—a skill she’s grateful she picked up around the same time as climbing. She now owns two restaurants in Estes Park, opening Bird’s Nest, her second, in the summer of 2022.
Her memoir details not only the obstacles she faced as a business owner, but also the fertility challenges she experienced. She shares her mistakes and successes along the way, and everything in between.
“I hope [readers] get some tools they can put in their kit that will help them navigate challenging times,” she said, “because life is going to be full of them.”
