Aron Ralston - Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“I do still have the tiniest bit of water left. Well, actually, I’ve resorted…I’ve had a couple pretty good sips of my own urine that I saved in my CamelBak. I sorta let it distill. The sediment separated from the more liquidy stuff.”

Emphasizing each word, I elaborate, “It tastes like hell,” and pause, smacking my lips apart when I try to swallow. “I have about a bite of burrito left that I can barely stomach anyways.

“I tried moving the rock some more. It’s not going anywhere.

“So it’s been not quite seventy hours since I left on my bike from Horseshoe Trailhead, during which time I have consumed three liters of water and a couple mouthfuls of piss. Food I’m not so worried about, although I am getting too tired to the point of doing anything. I can’t even chip away at the rock anymore. It’s…I tried, and I don’t have the energy and the gumption…It’s ridiculous.”

Disgusted with my impotence, I shudder and then moan, “Unaaannggh.” Shaking my head, I frown and grimace, then compose myself during a long blink and look straight at the camera for what I want to say next.

“Mom, Dad, I really love you guys. I wanted to take this time to say the times we’ve spent together have been awesome. I haven’t appreciated you in my own heart the way I know I could. Mom, I love you. Thank you so much for coming to visit me in Aspen. Dad, thank you for the time last year when we went on your trip with the Golden Leaf Tour. Those were some of my favorite times that I’ve had with you in a long, long time. Thank you both for being understanding, and supportive, and encouraging during this last year. I really have lived this last year. I wish I had learned some lessons more astutely, more rapidly, than what it took to learn. I love you. I’ll always be with you.”

Tightening my lips, I feel tears welling in my eyes. I bow my head in another long blink, then give the camera a nod, as though I’m saying goodbye, before I reach to pause the tape. A doleful breeze interjects itself in the canyon; the night’s calm is at an end. When I restart the video camera, my thoughts turn to my sister and the cloud of sorrow that will cast a shadow over her graduation and wedding this summer.

“I wanted to say to Sonja and Zack that I really wish you the best in your upcoming life together. You guys are great together. Sonja, you’ve got a great career in front of you. I know you guys are gonna both be very happy. I wish I could be there to see it start off. You’ll graduate about a month from now. Do great things with your life-that will honor me the best. Thanks.”

It makes me happy to think about my sister. Even though I got good grades in school, she came along and one-upped me in every arena, and I love her for it. She cares about learning-she’s planning to be a volunteer teacher. I’m glad for her, but I’m also glad for me. It’s as though Sonja will repay the educational debt I’ve accrued by having taken from the system without giving back. I’m more proud of what she’s done in college than of what I’ve done since I graduated six years ago. Even with me gone, big things will happen in our family because of her; it reassures me to know she has such aspirations.

Another breeze passes up from the unseen recesses of the canyon behind me, making me worry about a change in the weather. I can already discern a sheet of clouds thicker than any I’ve yet seen. No sign of thunderheads, but I wouldn’t necessarily see them before they unleashed a flash flood. I’d forgotten about that risk. While I’ve got the camera out, I decide to record a few more video notes in case the rains come. I start the tape again, panning up to the debris over my head.

“It’s also occurred to me that the flash-flood potential is still present. This stuff all up above me there, it’s all been put there…The rocks I pulled down on top of me, it was all put there by floods. There’s four pretty major canyons upstream from me that all converge in this three-foot-wide gap where I am. Even if I’m dead at that point, it’s gonna…it’s gonna fuck things up pretty bad. This footage will be unviewable, and my body will be pretty mangled. That’s really not here or there. I was almost wishing for it to come. In the one sense that maybe I could get a little bit of water. I don’t know if that sounds ridiculous or not, but I was thinking about it last night. I guess at the point where you’re sipping on your bodily waste products…I know I shouldn’t be doing it. It’s got too many salts and stuff in it, it’s just gonna hasten the process.

“Three days, I’ve been out of water for a day and a half. That probably means I’ve got another day and a half. I’m gonna hold strong. But if I even see Wednesday noon, I’ll be amazed.”

I stop the tape. Those are tough words. Verbalizing that I’m giving myself thirty more hours to live leaves me with a sense of finality that rubs my psyche the wrong way. I put the video recorder up on the chockstone, and my body involuntarily slumps back into the harness. The words echo and rebound inside my head-“if I even see Wednesday”-until they hit a synapse holding on to a store of gumption. The next thing I know, I’m stripping webbing off my right arm and tying the purple strands into Prusik loops once again. With the practice I had yesterday, I set up the 6:1 haul-system rigging in a fraction of the time it took me to figure it out the first time, clipping the rope tied to the chockstone through the carabiners and configuring the Prusiks with a single-handed dexterity that impresses my sluggish brain. My fumbling through the night left me thinking my coordination had dried up. Stashing my water bottle, urine supply, knife, and cameras in my backpack, I clear the top of the chockstone, lastly putting my scratched sunglasses on top of my head.

“Ready for liftoff,” I say to myself after double-checking the Prusiks to make sure they will lock off in the proper direction. Positioned just above my waist, the foot loops are a little higher than they were yesterday-I must have used a bit more rope in the system this time-but I mount the lower one first with my left foot and step up into the right one.

OK, now move the boulder, Aron. Do it. Bounce. Harder. Pull on the rope-yank on it. Bounce and yank. Harder! You’ve got to do this. Make it move!

Grunting, flailing, heaving, I bounce my weight in the stirrups and pull on the haul line. “Come on, move, dammit!”

Nothing. I am completely powerless against the mass of this stone and the friction of these walls. My feet pull themselves from the foot loops, as if they have a mind of their own that already knows I won’t be giving it another go. I am defeated again. There is nothing left for me to cling to. I am violently drowning in this Gothic isolation; the more I fight it, the tighter it closes in, squeezing the life from me. Resting for fifteen minutes, I feel like crying, but my dry sobs don’t produce anything. It’s as though I’m too dejected even to waste my energy on tears. What good could it do me to cry? It would squander what little liquid my body has left.

Slowly, I become aware of the cold stare of my knife from inside my backpack. There is a reason for everything, including why I brought that knife with me, and suddenly, I know what I am about to do. Mustering up my courage, I dismantle a purple Prusik loop from the rigging and tie it around my biceps, preparing the rest of my tourniquet as I’d refined it yesterday-CamelBak tubing insulation wrapped twice around my forearm, knotted twice and clipped with a ’biner that I twist six times and attach to the purple webbing to secure it.

I note the time with a glance at my watch on the backpack strap at my knees: 7:58 A.M.

Folding open the shorter of the two knives, I close the handle and grasp it in my fist, the blade jutting out from below my pinky finger. Raising the tool above my right arm, I pick a spot on the top of my forearm, next to a freckle and just up from the marks I scratched into my skin yesterday morning. I hesitate, jerking my left hand to a halt a foot above my target. I recock my tool, and before I can stop myself a second time, my fist violently thrusts the inch-and-a-half-long blade down, burying it to the hilt in the meat of my forearm.