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the needle. A mild burning courses up my arm as the narcotic enters my vein, but I never lose consciousness. Steve and I resume our debriefing as I describe my intended route from the Horseshoe Canyon trailhead down the Maze road, through Blue John Canyon, over the Big Drop, and back to my truck via Horseshoe Canyon. Explaining the dimensions of the section of slot where I was trapped, I reiterate the size of the rock and tell Steve how I was stuck in a standing position but that I rigged up an anchor so I could take the weight off my legs. I fill in the time line as best I can before I get drowsy from the morphine, outlining when I ran out of water, when I ran out of food, and when I figured out how to break my arm bones and amputate my arm. Then, as I hear a new voice, a man’s baritone, asking what the items are covering my right arm, I feel someone tugging at the CamelBak pack that I used as a sling, and I hear Ranger Steve say, “There’s a tourniquet or two under there. The rest is just padding.” With the world diving into a tunnel, I manage to slur, “Juss one, on my forearm,” before my streak of 127 hours of uninterrupted experience ends at three forty-five P.M., Thursday, May 1, 2003.

Ranger Steve Swanke takes my map and the notes from our discussion and walks into the reception area. After he collects himself from the surreal twenty-minute conversation he just had with me, his first action is to unclip his Park Service–issued cell phone from his belt and call my mom. She answers on the second ring, “Hello, this is Donna,” her voice stronger and more hopeful than the first time Steve heard her answer the phone with those words.

“Donna, hello. It’s Ranger Steve again. I have some good news and some bad news. We’ve found your son; he’s alive and he’s going to live.” Steve pauses and then issues the more difficult half of the update: “He was forced to amputate his arm to get out of the situation he was in. He’s in Moab now, but I’m sure he’ll be headed to Grand Junction shortly.”

My mom exhales heavily, as if she had been holding her breath for the last two days. “Thank God.” She instantly feels the relief of a mighty burden lifted. Her prayers have been answered: Her son is alive, and he’s going to be OK.

Still holding the phone, she turns to Sue Doss, who is at the kitchen table. “Sue, they found him! He’s going to be OK!” Never in her life has she been more full of joy than in that moment. For my mom, even the bad news is a blessing in that it isn’t any worse. She gathers herself, and the words rush out to Steve: “Oh, thank you, thank you. Thank you for bringing him back. We’ll leave right away.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Please be in touch as you know more.”

“I’ll do that. Anything else?”

A second request forms slowly in her mind, and she teases it out. “You’ll probably have to file a report or talk to the media about Aron. Please don’t be judgmental.”

Taking a few minutes to assess his notes, Ranger Steve sorts through the facts, looking for causes and contributing factors. As an experienced outdoorsman himself, he reflects for a few moments about how many times he has gone out hiking and kayaking by himself. “What is this all about? I go out and engage in risk activities by myself without always telling my wife where I’m going. It’s happening in Canyonlands today. There are people out there on their own involved in risk activities, solo, without anyone knowing where they are.” He fingers the map, knowing from my website that I am an experienced canyoneer and that Blue John Canyon is not a difficult canyon. Usually, Steve expects that an accident’s severity will be proportional to the terrain—extreme consequences befit extreme environments—but this event was catastrophic relative to the ease of the topography. “This is five-one canyoneering; it really doesn’t get any easier than this. I move rocks hiking in the canyons all the time, I can relate to that. We dance with these canyons with white gloves on, like we’re walking on eggshells. That’s what canyoneers do. We’re always conscious of it: