Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Aron Ralston

  A subtle stirring in my core tells me it’s time to pray. I haven’t done that yet, but I’m ready now. I close my left hand in a loose fist resting on the chockstone, shut my eyes, and lower my forehead onto my hand.

  “God, I am praying to you for guidance. I’m trapped here in Blue John Canyon—you probably know that—and I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I need some new ideas. Or if I need to try something again, lifting the boulder, amputating my arm, please show me a sign.”

  Waiting a minute, with my head still lowered, I slowly tilt my head back until I’m looking up through the pale twilight, beseeching the sky itself to advise me. I surprise myself by half expecting a visual cue to lead me through my dilemma. I catch myself scanning the rock walls, looking for some supernaturally scribed hieroglyphics. Of course, there is nothing, no metaphysical counsel, no divine reply manifesting itself in the sandstone. What had I wanted? A swirl in the clouds that would tell me the time and day help would arrive? A petroglyph showing a man with a knife? In a twisted and tired effort to disguise my disappointment, I start my prayer again, sarcasm soaking each word.

  “OK, then, God, since you’re apparently busy…Devil, if you’re listening, I need some help here. I’ll trade you my arm, my soul, whatever you want. Just get me out of here. You want me never to climb again, I can give that up. Just show me the dotted line.”

  I stop and sigh. While there’s not anything really funny about my joke, I’m glad I haven’t stopped trying to amuse myself yet.

  I think that maybe this is a test, a lesson. Perhaps once I figure out the lesson, then I’ll get free. Is that it? What am I supposed to get from this? What am I supposed to learn?

  I think about a lesson my Aspen friend Rob Cooper and I have talked about a few times. Rob isn’t a guy of many words when it comes to philosophy, but he’s often proved his deeper side in a single targeted remark. Typically, our conversation patterns would start with me telling Rob about a recent adventure, and out of the blue, he would reply with his favorite non sequitur: “It’s not what you do, Aron, it’s who you are.” Derailed from my story, I would spend the next ten minutes questioning Rob as to exactly what he meant by that. He’d repeat the axiom, and in the end, still not understanding, I would attempt to refute him. In my view, we define who we are precisely by what we do. We find our identity in action. If we do nothing, we are nothing. Our bodies even take on a look that is largely the result of our lifestyle. I never grasped what Rob was getting at. No matter how long I argued my side of the point, I never convinced him, either.

  Perhaps my skewed perspective from the depth of this canyon gives me the oblique angle I need to reconsider Rob’s comment. In thinking about what he has said, I have a breakthrough: Rob was sensing in the accounts of my adventures an unspoken request for his approval. More a reassurance than a challenge, his reply told me that it didn’t matter to him what I had done or achieved. He deemed me a friend because of who I am—as a person, not as a climber, a skier, an outdoorsman. My confusion at his assertion had shown how right he was. I got defensive because I wanted him to respect me for my accomplishments. I had fallen prey to the mentality that places sole value on achievement while overlooking the process of achieving. Rob, along with everyone else I cared about in my life, would either respect me for who I am—as in how I treat others—or they wouldn’t. My risk-taking didn’t affect my integrity as a friend. Huh. I think I get it now. Maybe that’s what I’m here to learn?

  Well, if that was it, Aron, then the chockstone should split in two and fall harmlessly to the sand right…about…now.

  Predictably, nothing happens. For another thirty seconds, nothing continues to happen, and I quit waiting. Maybe that small epiphany was an emotional table scrap, something to ease my tired conscience. I know I’m not trapped here waiting for enlightenment—I’m trapped here because there’s a huge boulder sitting on my hand. How big is this thing, anyway? It’s heavier than I am, but I made it move a little yesterday when I was trying to lift it. I doubt it weighs much more than a couple hundred pounds, or there’s no way I could’ve budged it at all. With a 6:1 mechanical advantage system multiplying most of my body’s weight standing in the haul-line foot loops, I should be able to dislodge the chockstone even if I lose half the lifting force back to friction. It’s too late in the evening to start reconfiguring the pulley system. I’m using most of the critical pieces of webbing as limb warmers, and I don’t want to give up even their slight insulation.

  Night erupts from the canyon and fills the sky. Closing my eyes, I make a wish and give a visual voice to my deepest desire. I see myself catching a lift on the incessant wind, riding the tidal wave of darkness out of here, letting it carry me like a raven over the desert scrub straight up to the void. I soar over the barren buttes, maroon tablelands, and buckled mantle of central Utah, heading west over the frigid black Great Basin and Sierra Nevada Mountains devoid of city lights, the land performing a magician’s trick of spectral transformation as I repeal the sunset and catch the day again somewhere over the Pacific Coast.

  When my struggle feels most difficult, time swells, my agony expanding with it exponentially. I age faster, especially at night, when I lose the visual cues of time’s actual progression. Three minutes of tormented shivering consume ten minutes of perceived experience, like I’ve fallen into a wormhole where I endure excruciating maltreatment for immeasurable eons only to return to normal consciousness. But I have found an antidote to this misery: In the hazy freedom of my imagination, I dip and weave in the whispering clouds over the sea, whitecaps changing to swells as I head still farther west. I fly higher through the atmosphere, glancing back to watch the land turn into a green frame around the cobalt ocean, islands shrinking to pinpoints. Slicing up through icy swirls of crystallized water vapor, I spiral into the vast gulf of space, jettisoning my body in a final act of evolution, metamorphosing into a splash of colored light, an iridescent cluster of hovering photons.

  A bout of shivering shuts down my fantasy, the dancing particles of light dissolving to black, and I open my eyes. My mind journey felt short, but checking my watch, I see that it’s nine-forty-five P.M. It was after nine when I noticed that it was dark enough to see stars. The same brilliant constellations I saw last night appear again in the narrow gap between the fissure’s walls. There are two that stand out from the others, like a pair of interlaced horseshoes. I wonder if one of them is the curved stinger of Scorpio, the Zodiac sign of my birthday, October 27. Regardless of their names, the unsympathetic stars are a somber reminder that there are no lights to pollute the view. I am so far removed from civilization that I might as well be on the moon.

  “Ungg-gggu-ggga-gggngh.” My throat gives forth a series of unintelligible sounds as my teeth chatter, clacking spastically like a woodpecker’s drill.

  Trying to capture what warmth I can from the continuing shudders, I rearrange my ad hoc clothing. The top coils of my climbing rope have loosened, exposing my thighs to the cold. I cinch the wraps tighter and weave the upper end around the highest five strands, hoping that will hold the coils above my knees. I experiment with using my rope bag like a miniature bivy sack, putting my left hand and arm inside the unzipped fabric tube, then tucking my head inside the flap. The tight confines of the bag force my head forward onto my wrist, which is marginally more comfortable if I set my left hand on my right biceps, near the shoulder. Sitting in my harness with my left hip against the canyon wall, I’m stable enough that I can lean to the right, resting my head on my left hand at my right elbow, and relax my upper body. It’s as if I’m putting my head down for a desk nap in elementary school.

  I have produced enough warmth that I can sit in my harness inactive for almost fifteen minutes before the shivers come back. As my body quivers, the ropes loosen around my legs, and I gradually submit to fidgeting with my meager coverings for another half hour. Using my headlamp, I fuss over the ropes, fool around with the webbing looped
around my right arm, adjust the punched-out camera sack on my left arm, squirm around in my harness to stimulate the circulation in my legs, and finally tuck my arm and head back into the rope bag, reassuming the position, as I have come to think of it. Another fifteen minutes of blessed idleness and then more shivers. A pattern emerges. I fidget for a half hour, raising my metabolic output enough that I can ease back in my harness for fifteen minutes. But always the cold wins, and convulsions rip through me, my jaw clenching in uncontrollable spasms until I think I’m going to shatter my teeth.

  After the fourth cycle of action and repose, it’s midnight, time for my designated sip of water. The hours went by quickly. Not as fast as last night, but I’m conserving my calories more than I did last night. I pick up the Nalgene from its spot in the sand and curse myself for tightening the lid too much—I can’t unscrew it. Squeezing the bottle between my legs, I manage to get the lid open and bring it to my lips, tilting it just enough that a half ounce of cool water splashes onto my tongue. I crave more. The sip initiates a chain reaction of escalating thirst that culminates in a half-crazed desire to drink the entire cup of remaining fluid.

  Don’t you do it, Aron.

  Commanding my hand to reseal the Nalgene, I recognize that I am managing to control my reactions and fight my raw instincts with a rational strategy for long-term preservation. Sometime, in the next twenty-four hours, most likely, I will run out of water. I wonder what my discipline will have me do then. Will I continue my ritual of opening the Nalgene, trying to eke the last molecule from the hard plastic bottle? I envision my tongue dryly searching the rim of the long-empty bottle, scraping over the Lexan in a deranged hope.

  Returning to the pattern of fidgeting and rest, I mentally pace myself for the next six hours. Eight more cycles of adjusting the ropes and coverings, interspersed with ten- or fifteen-minute periods of stasis, and dawn will be here. I can’t sleep, but sitting still helps me focus my energy. I avoid thinking about rescue or any of my self-rescue options. Most of the time, I stare at my breath, condensing on the inside of the waterproof rope bag. For some reason, it’s more comforting to leave my headlamp on for a few minutes each time I tuck my head into the bag; I think it helps stave off claustrophobia. The bag is a bit bigger than a plastic grocery sack, the kind you’re not supposed to let children play with. It’s counterintuitive to put my head inside it, but it makes a noticeable improvement in reducing my heat emission to the night sky. Once I’m accustomed to the black-plastic-coated interior, I turn off my headlamp and listen to my breathing, feel the moisture building up inside the bag, and relax as best I can in the position, waiting for light.

  It’s colder now. My watch thermometer registers 53 degrees F—chilly, but I’m sustaining myself all right. As maddening as it is for my body to launch into another round of quaking tremors, I’m reassured that my involuntary reflexes are still functioning well. They could as easily have ceased to perform due to the stress and trauma of my accident. How lucky I am that the boulder didn’t cause any significant blood loss. I would have gone into hypovolemic shock, my heart trying to pump an insufficient volume of blood through my body’s piping. It is a meaningless reprieve. There will come a time when my body’s metabolic processes no longer behave according to their operating codes, and then shapeless death will bear me away.

  I decide to chip at the rock to help generate better warmth, since there’s not enough work involved in adjusting my leggings. Hacking at the boulder also keeps my mind busy, though I’m no longer trying to make headway. I know the boulder will continue to settle on my arm as I remove more material from it. The area where I chipped the flakes off yesterday has already rotated down onto my right arm, eclipsing the entire night’s progress. But in five minutes, I am warm and lay my multi-tool back on top of the chockstone, pull my rope bag over my head, and sit back once more. In each of the next five cycles, I include a token effort of tapping my knife blade, and sometimes the file blade, into the lopsided stone.

  The sky gradually changes from black to white. My ordered regimen of fidgeting and rest has brought me through another night, though I am not thankful for the wearisome repetition of my survival. I thrive on stimulation and action, and aside from the litany of physical duress, my entrapment has brought the additional psychological curse of being unable to fully occupy my mind. I feel engaged at moments, even an hour at a time, but I can’t help dwelling on the monotony of this motionlessness. If dehydration and hypothermia don’t take me in the next couple of days, boredom may well dull my instincts and quash my will to live. A question haunts me: How weary will I get before suicide seems the only excitement that could relieve the ennui?

  It is a colorless sunrise, too bright for stars to peek through the light. The ghost-white sky puzzles me; I can’t tell if I’m still staring into the now pale heavens or peering up at a sheet of clouds. Clouds at night would be good—they help block the radiation losses that make surfaces much colder than the air temperature. But clouds during the day are less desirable. They’ll keep the desert from warming up, and there’s always the chance that if they bring rain, the canyon will flood, game over. Another hour passes, and the day resolves to a cloudless azure blue.

  Rather than waiting for the canyon to warm up, I start the process of rerigging my boulder-lifting system. I remove the webbing from my arm. I got myself sweaty yesterday trying to lift the boulder, and I figure my exertion will warm me up. Based on my SAR training, I’ve envisioned an arrangement of carabiners and Prusik loops that should give me a 6:1 power ratio. Before I can attach all the loops and ’biners, I have to shorten the anchor webbing about six inches, to create more space between the chockstone and the rap ring for the expanded lifting system. I tie a series of overhand knots in the webbing above the rap ring, using up material and effectively tightening the anchor loop. As the anchor rises higher and becomes more difficult to reach, I smear the soles of my running shoes against the canyon walls, gaining almost two feet of height, but at the cost of a painful strain on my right wrist.

  I remember to install a progress-capture loop from the anchor to the main line this time, so that if I am successful in raising the boulder even a few inches, I can seize the main line with the Prusik and reset the rest of the system to haul again. With a 6:1 system ratio, for every twelve inches that I successfully pull the haul line, I’ll get two inches of lift on the boulder. Since my system is stuffed into a cramped three-foot space between the anchor loop and the chockstone, I have only about a one-foot haul run until the system cinches up on itself. I need to lift the boulder six to eight inches to free the upper part of my palm, requiring at least three resets on the system. I’ve already decided that if one or more of my fingers are still stuck, once I get my palm free, I will do what it takes to liberate my hand, ripping off the remaining pinched digits if necessary.

  With the system in place, I hoist myself up the rope until I can step into the foot loops. I notice the added spice of excitement in this attempt, and a hope comes that I will soon be free. But as I weight the haul loops and the rope stretches and the Prusiks grab the main line, there is no effect on the boulder. Emotionally let down but not despairing, I examine the system, adjust the Prusiks, and consider whether I should shorten the anchor webbing again. Because of the rope stretch, I need more space for the system to grow before it will pull on the boulder. I add two more knots above the rap ring. Trying again, I watch the system tighten, but still not even a scrape or a rumble from the boulder. There is no sharp attack of pain in my wrist that would certainly attend any significant movement of the chockstone. Dammit, what’s going on here? I bounce in the foot loops, pulling back on the haul line with my left hand at the same time. The rope is taut in my grasp; I’m exerting as much force as I can. But as I follow the rope through the bends at the carabiners with my fingers, I feel it slacken at every turn. With my weight fully set on the system, I pluck the main line just above the boulder and realize the problem: There is no tension in the rope. It�
�s as loose as if I had completely let up on the haul. Friction between the rope and the carabiners is dissipating every bit of force that I can apply. There are too many bends, too many losses. Maybe with pulleys I would have a chance, but not like this.

  Now the disappointment settles over me. After I’d already acquiesced to the inutility of further attempts at self-extrication yesterday, and resolved to wait for rescue, raising my hopes only to annihilate them a second time leaves me utterly dejected. My shoulders slump as I step out of the haul loops, and I tear down the haul system so I can sit in my harness and rest. I sigh disconsolately over and over again, fighting with every reserve I can to keep from crying. I am on the brink of total abdication.

  I pull myself out of this wretched state by imagining my friends in Aspen getting up and going to work this morning, my housemates preparing for our roommate Leona’s goodbye party. By this time tomorrow, they will know positively that something is wrong, and the search will begin. My nearly extinguished hope for salvation flickers again. I’m no worse off than I was yesterday; I’m back to waiting.

  Each time I look at my watch and see it near the top of the hour, I calculate how long I’ve been stuck, counting down to the significant milestones. One of the effects of the sleep deprivation is that I’m unable to hold the last hour’s tallies in my head, and I constantly have to start over with the math. It’s seven A.M., and I have been trapped for forty hours. Forty hours without sleep, forty hours without adequate food and water, forty hours of shivering, forty hours of stress, fatigue, and agony. Exactly two days ago, I woke up in the back of my truck, where I’d slept on Friday night, and cooked some oatmeal before getting my canyoneering and biking supplies ready for the itinerary I had planned.