Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [144]
Georgia sent a statewide “Attempt to Locate” notice over the radio at 6:52 A.M. with the information my mom had provided:
All cars, Richfield, attempt to locate missing person. He should be in the Utah, possibly the Parks areas.
All cars, Richfield, attempt to locate missing person out of Aspen, Colorado, traveling to Utah, for a backcountry trip. He was last seen April 24th, last Thursday, in Aspen. Advised he was going to go somewhere in Utah where it was warm to hike.
His vehicle is maroon ’98 Toyota Tacoma, has New Mexico plate, Eight-Four-Six-Mike-Mike-
Yankee, New Mexico Eight-Four-Six-Mike-
Mike-Yankee, will have a topper and ski racks on top.
All call, continuing, subject is Aron Ralston, twenty-seven-year-old white male, six-foot-two, a hundred-and-sixty-five pounds, brown eyes, brown hair. He is alone, he is an experienced hiker, search and rescue, and mountain climber, also a skier. Very responsible person.
Subject failed to return to his work Tuesday as expected. He has not been heard from. He should have ski racks and ski equipment on his truck. He had advised a friend that he was going to Utah backcountry, on a hiking trip. Would have been traveling I-70, unknown from there and he should be camping in his truck. Would have very little money.
At the BLM office in Salt Lake, Larry Shackleford spoke with my mom at eight A.M. Immediately upon hanging up, he sent a “Be On the Look Out” notice for my vehicle to the BLM and Utah State Fish and Wildlife offices, then called a half-dozen of his personal acquaintances in those bureaus to follow up and make sure they received the action request. It reassured my mother that Georgia and Larry had taken direct action to help move the search along. She was tired of hearing from the police and some of the dispatchers that “this happens all the time” or “he’ll eventually show up someplace.” These actions were two rays of sunshine for my mom through that darkest morning. She was anxious for Captain Kyle Ekker, the most cooperative and helpful of the many contacts she had established and maintained over the past twenty-four hours, to resume his shift so she could speak with him about the investigation’s progress.
At nine A.M., Adam Crider walked out of the Aspen Police Department with a voided check from my checking account and headed over to the U.S. Bank. First thing on a Thursday, the bank was empty of customers, and he approached the first window and interrupted the teller preparing her drawer for the day.
Upon hearing his spiel, the teller summoned the bank manager to get his approval to access my debit-card history. The small group peered at her computer screen as she entered the digits of my account.
“It looks like the last transaction was on the twenty-fifth, in Moab, at a City Market.”
“How much was it?”
“Twenty-two thirty-one was the charge…no cash back.” (I had stocked up on water, juice, fruit, candy bars, and burritos.)
“What’s the one before that?”
“Twenty-nine twenty-two at Clark’s here in town on the twenty-fourth.” (I had bought groceries on the evening of the twenty-third, before going home to pack for my ski day with Brad and the subsequent Utah vacation, but the supermarket had not processed the transaction until after midnight.)
“And that’s it? Nothing after the twenty-fifth? How frequently is this updated?”
“It’s immediate, at least within a few hours, depending on how the merchants submit their batches.”
Crider already knew from the phone work he and the other officers had done the night before that my last credit-card transaction had been on the twenty-fourth, gassing up in Glenwood Springs, the city at the intersection of the Roaring Fork River and the Colorado River. From Glenwood,