Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [88]
“I also could have said something more to Megan and Kristi, the Outward Bound girls. I should have gone with them. Just left and gone out the West Fork.”
Again I shake my head in self-pity and fight off a series of long blinks. I deserve all of this.
“God, I am really screwed. I’m going to shrivel up right here over the course of the next few days. If I had a way to end it, I probably would, tomorrow afternoon or so. It’s miserable. It’s cold. I can’t keep the wind off me. It just blows. It’s not even that much of a breeze, but it’s cold. It comes from back there.” I motion over my left shoulder with a toss of my head.
“I’m doing what I can, but this sucks. It’s really bad. This is one of the worst ways to go. Knowing what’s going to happen, but it still being three or four days out.” My voice trails off to a hoarse whisper. I hope I don’t last for four more days. I can’t imagine what shape I’ll be in if I’m still alive on Friday.
Feeling the weight of my impending demise, I make a logical transition to what to do with my stuff. I can’t avoid the moroseness of it, but it seems practical to advise my family about my assets, effectively recording a short version of a last will and testament.
“I did want to say, on the logistical side of things, I have some American Express insurance that should cover costs of the recovery operation when that does happen. Bank-account balances should take care of my credit-card debts. You’ll have to sell my house, Mom and Dad. Possession-wise, I don’t know if Sonja can use my computer and video camera…There are pictures on the memory stick in my pocket and in the camera. My friend Chip down in New Mexico can have my CDs. All my outdoor crap, Sonja, if you want it, if any of it fits and you can use it, you’re welcome to it.”
Nearly in tears, I’m finished talking. I stop the camera, fold the screen into its stowed position, and put it back in my pack. I hold my head in my left hand and dejectedly shake it, sniffling, wiping my palm down over my nose and mouth, my fingers wiping at my eyelashes and brushing the facial hair under my nose and around my frown lines.
A half hour later, around 3:35 P.M. on Monday afternoon, I have to urinate again. “How is this possible?” I wonder. That’s twice today, despite the fact that I’m most certainly dehydrated. What’s going on?
Save it, Aron. Pee into your CamelBak. You’re going to need it.
Obeying, I transfer the contents of my bladder into my empty water reservoir, saving the orangish-brown discharge for the unappetizing but inevitable time when it will be the only liquid I have. I should have saved the first batch, I realize with hindsight. It was much clearer than this and didn’t smell half as nasty. I debate whether I should drink it or not but defer that choice for later.
I eagerly dig out my digital still camera for the first time and take a series of pictures: a close-up of my arm disappearing into the rock; a detail of my anchor system that suspends me in my harness; and two self-portraits—one looking downcanyon, and one from above my left shoulder that shows me with the chockstone. Reviewing the photos, I also flip through the ones I took during the first two days of my vacation on Mount Sopris and around Moab, then the ones of Megan and Kristi in the upper part of Blue John Canyon. The angels.
Eight
“I’m Goin’ to Utah”
People say that we’re searching for the meaning of life. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
—JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Power of Myth
THROUGH THE WINTER of 2003, I kept my immediate attention on the nine 14,000-foot mountains that I was climbing, week by week adjusting my energy to a new route on another challenging peak. They were ends in themselves, a series of intrinsically