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Outside Magazine September 2004

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Excerpt: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Trapped (cont.)

DAY TWO: SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 9:30 A.M.
I wonder what kidney failure will feel like. Not good, probably. Maybe like when you eat so much you get cramps in your back. Only worse, I bet. It's gonna be a rough way to die. Hypothermia would be better. But the temperature didn't dip that low last night, only about 50 degrees on my watch thermometer. Maybe death by flash flood?

But I'm ready for action, not for dying. It's time to get a better anchor established, one that I can use to build a rigging system to try to move the boulder.

It appears to me that a small triangular horn sticks out from a shelf six feet over my head. But my attempts to toss the webbing over the horn founder. Time after time, the webbing pulls free.

A fissure on the right side of the horn catches my eye. The next time I throw, just as the knot is about to crest the horn, I put the rope leader in my teeth and gently twitch the webbing—it slips back into the slot. Aha! I slip a metal rappel ring over the yellow strap of webbing, forming a loop with the ring at the bottom.

I've spent two hours just getting the anchor set up, but the endeavor has been an unqualified success so far.

Good work, Aron. Now all you've got to do is move the boulder. Don't stop now.

Cutting 30 feet of climbing rope, I loop one end of the short piece around my chockstone and tie it to itself. Next I thread the other end up through the rappel ring—I can just reach it without tugging against my right wrist. I yank on the rope. Nothing.

Well, at least the anchor is holding.

I need a bigger mechanical advantage. Engrossed, I call upon my search-and-rescue experience, and the two hauling systems we used to evacuate people from vertical faces. I decide on a modified Z-pulley system with a haul line so I can pull down to lift the boulder off my hand. I add Prusik loops, wrapping webbing around the rope in a friction knot that, when loose, slides along the rope but tightens when weighted. Then I clip the loops to carabiners, connecting the rope back to itself. With two such changes in direction, I've theoretically tripled the force applied at the haul point. But the boulder ignores my efforts. Flailing through hours of taxing work, I never once budge the rock.

I finally stop for a break and glance at my watch. It's after one o'clock, and I'm sweating and panting.

Suddenly, I hear distant voices echoing in the canyon. My mind swears in exhilarated surprise, and my breath abruptly catches in my suddenly dry throat. Holding my breath, I listen.

"HELP!"

The caterwauling echoes of my shout fade in the canyon. Forcing myself not to breathe, I listen for a reply. Nothing.

"HELLLP!"

The desperation of my quivering shout disturbs me. Again, I hold my breath. After the dying fall of my shout, there is no returningsound besides the thumping of my heart. A critical moment passes, and I know there is no one in this canyon. My hopes evaporate.

My morale slumps in a pang, like the first time a girl broke my heart. Then I hear the noises again. But I know better, and I wait. Slowly they resolve themselves into the scratchy sounds of a kangaroo rat in his nest.

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