Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [101]
“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