Last Saturday while climbing I was just weighting the lip of a pocket about 3" wide and a little deeper when I felt a sharp stab in my finger. The two people who had just climbed the route had both reported how sharp the rock was on the climb,, so I attributed it to that and kept climbing. Though something deep in my lizard brain refused to let me try to use that pocket again, in spite of it being an important seeming hold in a fairly critical place. Later that afternoon, winding down in the parking lot, I noticed that the entire pad of my middle finger was numb. At that time I just figured the rock must have dinged it worse than I had realized in the heat of the moment. But several days went by and the numbness remained (albiet diminishing slightly day by day, though even now, a week later, a small patch remains), and on reflection the stabbing felt a lot more like hitting a cactus spine than a pointy rock, and my conclusion is I probably got stung or bit by something protecting its home. I''ve become curious about what it might have been. Do those symptoms (brief, sharp pain followed by lingering localized numbness) match anyone else's experience with getting tagged in Pinnacles?
