Aron Ralston - Between a Rock and a Hard Place

A fissure on the right side of the horn catches my eye. Maybe I can slip the webbing into that slot and give it a better angle to slide around the back of the horn more steadily. The next time I throw and pull the rope, right as the knot is about to crest the horn, I put the rope leader in my teeth and gently twitch the webbing. It responds by slipping back into the slot. Aha! This time, I tug the knot over the shelf’s lip. I can see the difference in how the webbing drapes farther over the back of the salmon-colored horn. Slowly reeling in the leader, I know I’ve got a workable setting for my anchor. Untying the knot connecting rope and webbing, I slip a metal rappel ring over the yellow strap and tie a series of overhand knots in the webbing until it hangs in a loop with the ring at the bottom. I tug on the loop with my left hand, tightening the knot and testing its placement around the outcropping. The webbing doesn’t creep at all as I apply more and more of my body weight. It’s set.

Checking my watch, I note that it’s already after eleven on Sunday morning. I’ve spent two hours just getting the anchor reconfigured, but the endeavor has been an unqualified success so far. My prescribed sip of water enhances my feeling of satisfaction. I’m using discipline well, and I’m pleased with myself over the accomplishment of setting an anchor from below-and single-handedly at that-around an unlikely feature.

Good work, Aron. Now all you’ve got to do is move the boulder. Don’t stop now.

Cutting my climbing rope about thirty feet from one end, I loop one end of the short piece around my chockstone and tie it to itself. Next I thread the other end up through the rappel ring-I can just reach the ring with my left hand. Without expecting any movement of the boulder, I yank on the rope. Sure enough, nothing.

Well, at least the anchor is holding.

I need to fashion a pulley system to create some mechanical advantage. With the single bend in the rope, I’m not lifting the boulder with as much force as I’m pulling on the line. Friction at the rap ring is actually making this setup a mechanical disadvantage system. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pulleys with me; I do have carabiners, though they’ll have a much greater friction loss. Attempting to tear down the ’biner-block anchor that I was previously using to suspend my harness, I flip the rope again and again until the jumbled mess of interconnected links unwedges from the crack.

Time lapses unnoticed for me now; I’m wholly attuned to my endeavor with the rope system. I call upon my training in search and rescue and design a scheme in my mind that will replicate the technical hauling systems we use to evacuate immobilized patients from vertical rock faces. The Albuquerque rescue team taught me two standard systems, and I choose between them, deciding on a Z-pulley system with an additional redirection of the haul line. Modifying the typical system layout for my space and equipment constraints, I add Prusik loops of tied runners clipped to carabiners to connect the rope back to itself. With two such changes in direction, I’ve theoretically tripled the force applied at the haul point-a mechanical advantage ratio of 3:1. Due to my improvisations, the friction in my system is probably halving that advantage, but 1.5:1 is still better than 0.5:1, like my first attempt.

Still, the system is too weak. The boulder ignores my efforts. At the end of the haul line, I tie a set of slipknots that slide onto stopper knots, creating foot loops. Stepping into the loops makes me about two feet taller in the canyon, and though I’m in an awkward position due to my stuck hand, I can now put most of my body weight into service on the haul line. I’ve probably tripled or quadrupled the force that I could apply when I was gripping the rope with one hand. The haul line is taut, even through the bends at the carabiners, and my system is working as designed. However, because I’m using a dynamic climbing rope, meant to stretch and absorb the energy of a climbing fall, I lose much of the force I’m exerting on the haul line. Flailing through hours of taxing work, and several unsuccessful iterations of raising the anchor webbing a few inches by tying another knot above the rap ring, I never once budge the rock. I’m doing the best I can with my available materials. Maybe I could rig a 5:1 system-I have enough carabiners and webbing-but I would need another foot of space between the anchor and the rock to fit all the bends of the larger system. Discouraged from the effort and the lack of measurable progress, I stop for a break and glance at my watch. It’s after one o’clock in the afternoon, and I’m sweating and panting.

Suddenly, I hear distant voices echoing in the canyon. My mind swears in exhilarated surprise, and my breath abruptly catches in my dry throat.

Could it be? It’s the right time of day-a group would get to this part and be able to return out to the West Fork or to Horseshoe Trailhead in daylight. And just like you figured, the odds are better that others will come through on a weekend day. After all, that’s how you came to be here yesterday afternoon.

Even reasoning it through, I’m afraid I may be delusional, that the sounds are in my head. Holding my breath, I listen.

Yes! The noises are distorted and far off but familiar: shoes scrabbling on sandstone. It’s probably a group of canyoneers descending the first drop-off, back at the S-log.

“HELP!”

The caterwauling echoes of my shout fade in the canyon. Forcing myself not to breathe, I listen for a reply. Nothing.

“HELLLP!”

The desperation of my quivering shout disturbs me. Again I hold my breath. After the dying fall of my shout, there is no returning sound besides the thumping of my excited heart. A critical moment passes, my hopes evaporate, and I know there are no people in this canyon.

My morale slumps in a pang, like the first time a girl broke my heart. Then I hear the noises again. This time I know better and I wait. The echoes I took to be approaching canyoneers resolve into the scratchy sounds of a kangaroo rat in his nest in the debris jammed around the suspended chockstone above and behind my head. I rotate and see his tail whip across a pile of twigs as he disappears into his hole.

In that moment, I promise myself that I will yell for help only once a day. Hearing my voice’s shaky timbre nearly panicked me, and to yell out any more often would undermine my effort to maintain a calm and clearheaded demeanor. Rationally, I know there will be no one coming down this canyon until perhaps the next weekend, when the search teams will be scouring the backcountry for my body. Since my voice can be heard fifty yards away at most, and the nearest people would be five to seven miles away, it serves no positive purpose to shout myself scared.

Around two o’clock, I reconsider my status and my options. Waiting, chipping, and lifting have all played out unsuccessfully. For the first time, I seriously contemplate amputating my arm, thinking through the process and possible consequences. Laying out everything I have on the surfaces around me, I think through each item’s possible use in a surgery. My two biggest concerns are a cutting tool that can do the job, and a tourniquet that will keep me from bleeding out. There are two blades on my multi-tool: The inch-and-a-half blade is sharper than the three-inch one. It will be important to use the longer blade for hacking at the chockstone and preserve the shorter blade for the potential surgery.

I instinctively understand that even with the sharper blade, I won’t be able to saw through my bones. I’ve seen the hacksaws that Civil War-era doctors used for amputating patients’ legs and arms in battlefield hospitals, and I don’t have anything that could approximate even a rudimentary saw. I’ve made an assumption that I want to amputate as little of my arm as possible. This unstated parameter leads me to think strictly in terms of cutting through the bones of my forearm, as opposed to going through the cartilage of my elbow joint. The latter possibility never occurs to me, preemptively eliminating the likeliest method.