Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [57]
Just start at the beginning. Assume whoever sees this will find it after you’re dead. You can leave it out on top of the rock with an etching in the wall, “Play me,” and an arrow or something pointing at the camera. Maybe it will be separated from your body in a flood. Tell them everything.
I begin. “It’s three-oh-five on Sunday. This marks my twenty-four-hour mark of being stuck in Blue John Canyon above the Big Drop. My name is Aron Ralston. My parents are Donna and Larry Ralston of Englewood, Colorado. Whoever finds this, please make an attempt to get this to them. Be sure of it. I would appreciate it.”
I take long blinks and rarely check the camera’s screen. I’m un-kempt from four days of scruffy facial-hair growth since the last time I shaved at home in Aspen. But what really makes me avert my glance is the haggard look in my eyes. They are huge, wide-open bowls reflecting the harrowing stress I’ve been through in the last day. Loose rolls of flesh sag and tug at my lower eyelids.
My slurred words come listlessly between labored breaths. I struggle to enunciate clearly.
“So…I was hiking Blue John Canyon yesterday…Saturday…at about two-forty-five to three, somewhere in there, I got to where the lower section of Blue John slots up again. Did some free downclimbing…not too bad…got to the second set of chockstones. And that’s where I am still right now. Because one of the chockstones pulled out as I was pulling on it, climbing off of it, and it slid down, smashed, and trapped my right hand.”
Picking up the camera, I point it first to where my forearm and wrist disappear in the horrifyingly skinny gap between the chockstone and wall. Then I pan the camcorder up over the pinch point to get a view down on my grayish-blue hand.
“What you’re looking at there is my arm, going into the rock…and there it is, stuck. It’s been without circulation for twenty-four hours. It’s pretty well gone.”
I swing the camera up to the anchor webbing and rap ring.
“The ropes you see are set up to give me a seat so I don’t have to stand up all the time. I was not rappelling at the time of the accident, although I did get my harness on afterwards, and I’ve been sitting.
“I’ve been putting a lot of effort into staying warm. I have very, very little water. I had less than a liter when I got here. I have about a third of a liter now. At that rate I will be out before morning.”
Another breeze sweeps over me, and I shudder uncontrollably for five seconds.
“My body’s having a difficult time controlling its temperature.
“Unnhhhh…I’m in deep stuff.” I wince, grimace, and choke on the weight of my words.
“Nobody knows where I am except for two girls that I met yesterday while hiking Blue John. Kristi and Megan of Moab…with Outward Bound there. They went out the West Fork of Blue John, and I continued on.
“I had ridden my bike, which is still parked and locked—the keys are in my pocket here—about a mile southeast of Burr Pass, at a tree that’s about a hundred and fifty yards off the side of the road, the left side of the road as you’re heading southeast. It’s a red Thin Air, Rocky Mountain. It’ll still be there.”
The breeze picks up, and I squint into the gust, trying to keep grit out of my eyes. Wind noise obliterates my voice on the tape, so I stop recording. After gathering my thoughts, I start the tape again to explain my options.