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I lick my lips and taste the coating of pulverized grit that has stuck to the dried sweat on my face. My knife is out of reach for my left hand, and nudging it with my foot only buries it in the sand. (At least I know I can get it back.) Taking note of the crushed rock that’s all over the chockstone and my right arm, I sigh. I drop the rest of the hammer rock in front of my feet, attentive to my knife. I take off my left shoe and sock again, grab the multi-tool in my outstretched toes, and retrieve it easily.

“Come on, Aron, no more stupid stuff like that,” I chastise myself, knowing I won’t be trying the hammer-chisel approach again. “That’s the last thing you can afford, to lose your knife.” Somehow I know it will be vital to my survival. Even though I’m certain it’s far too dull to saw through my arm bones, I might need it for other things, like cutting webbing, or maybe making my backpack into a kind of wearable jacket to keep me warmer at night.

It’s going on eight o’clock, and a breeze is blowing softly downcanyon. Every few minutes, the wind accelerates, flicking sand over the ledge above me into my face. I bow my head to protect my face beneath the brim of my hat. This keeps most of the dust out of my eyes, but I can feel the grit on my contacts. After huddling from a half-dozen cycles of the breeze, I catch myself not doing anything or even thinking about anything; I’m in a fleeting daze that dissolves when I become aware of it. Coming back around to my current situation, I look at the broken-up dirt and rock pieces covering my right arm. Using my fingers, then my knife, to get to the more confined spots around my right hand, I brush off the dirt. With pursed lips, I puff the last dust particles off my hand. It’s ridiculous, this compulsion to keep my arm clean, but being tidy is one of the few means by which I can exert even a small degree of control over my circumstances.

I resume my excavation as darkness seeps from my penumbral hole and spills into the desert above me, turning dusk to night. I turn my headlamp back on and pick a new target on the chockstone—a beige-pink heart of sandstone ringed by hard black mineral features. This spot is two inches above my wrist, so I am cautious with my strikes until I can chisel out a starter hole that allows me to jab harder at the chockstone. I establish a rhythm, pecking at two jabs per second, pausing to blow away dust once every five minutes. Time slips past. I can see a tiny measure of progress as a small salmon-colored flake emerges beside the shallow trough I’m carving out of the chockstone. If I’m right, I might be able to dig out enough material around this pastel nugget so that I can pop it out as a single chip.

I slip into the flow of intent action. Before I know it, three hours are gone, and it’s nearly midnight. I have isolated the little flake on three sides—left, top, and bottom—by a channel about an eighth of an inch wide, and I’m ready to pry it off the boulder. Not wanting to accidentally break off the tip of my knife blade, I switch my multi-tool to the file. The file is not only thicker and sturdier, it’s also somewhat more expendable. With the file tip positioned in the in-cut groove, I lever the handle toward the rock and watch for the flake to come flying for my eyes, holding my breath. I feel my tool biting into my palm just as the flake crumbles and breaks away. Yes! A dimesized piece of rock pops off the chockstone and falls onto my trapped wrist. It’s not as big as I could have hoped, but I’m pleased that my strategy paid off with at least a little progress. With the flake removed, I’ve exposed some softer rock that I can extract more easily. Pecking for another hour eradicates almost as much stone as what came off in the flake. I save the largest chips that fall on my trapped arm, setting them side by side on the top of the boulder. My collection grows as I enlarge the minute crater, but as my line of chips increases, so does my fatigue. The aching pain of my arm nags at my mind