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Outside Magazine September 2004
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Excerpt: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Trapped
Deep inside a remote canyon, a boulder shifts. In an instant, a climber's hand is pinned beneath half a ton of rock. So begins an ordinary hero's six-day ordeal of grit, pain, and courage—a modern-day survival epic that culminates in a decision to do the unthinkable. In this exclusive preview of Between a Rock and a Hard Place, ARON RALSTON tells his own story.

By Aron Ralston

Aron Ralston
(Kurt Markus)
"IT'S 3:05 ON SUNDAY. This marks my 24-hour mark of being stuck in Blue John Canyon. 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."

It's April 27, 2003, and for the first time since my arm was pinned against the wall of this Utah canyon, I am using my digital camcorder to videotape myself. I take long blinks and rarely look at the camera's screen. What makes me avert my glance is the haggard expression in my eyes. They are wide-open, huge bowls; loose rolls of flesh sag and tug at my lower eyelids.

Get It Here
Pre-order your copy of Ralston's memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, available from September 7 from Amazon.com.
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Picking up the camera, I point it first at my forearm and wrist, where it disappears in the horrifyingly skinny gap between a large boulder and the canyon wall. Then I pan the camcorder up over the pinch point to 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 24 hours. It's pretty well gone."

Shaking my head in defeat, I yawn, battling fatigue.

I outline my failed attempts at self-rescue, and continue. "The other thing that could happen is someone comes. This being a continuation of a canyon that's not all that popular, and the continuation being less so, I think that's very unlikely before I retire from dehydration and hypothermia. Judging by my degradation in the last 24 hours, I'll be surprised if I make it to Tuesday."

I know with a sense of finality that I'm saying goodbye to my family—my parents and my 22-year-old sister, Sonja—and that regardless of how much I suffer in this spot, they will feel more agony than me.

"I'm sorry."

With tears brimming, I stop filming and rub the backs of my knuckles across my eyes. I start up once more.

"You guys make me proud. I go out looking for adventure and risk, so I can feel alive. But I go out by myself, and I don't tell someone where I'm going—that's just dumb. If someone knew, if I'd been with someone else, there would probably already be help on the way. Dumb, dumb, dumb."


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ARON RALSTON's memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, is now available from Atria Books.
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