Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #2 (Pg 217-431)

Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #2

            Aron, trapped in Blue John Canyon, has to survive and preserve what’s left of his water. He had a few ideas on how to escape from the boulder. One was to lift the few hundred pound rock with his rope and limited tools off his hand just enough to get his palm out; this idea didn’t work. The next idea was to chip away at the block but it was time and strength consuming since he was chipping away at a sandstone boulder; this wasn’t any ordinary sandstone though. It came from the top layer of the canyon, meaning that it’s the most erosion resistant sandstone around the area. His third option was to cut off his arm, but argued against himself for thinking that. The only choice he had left was to wait for rescue or his demise. He tried to schedule and divided the amount of water he had left, estimating that it would last him for 3 days and that rescue won’t come for 5 days; but after dropping the container and losing some valuable water, he wildly drank it all and waits for his death. Instead, he drank his urine as a replacement for liquid. At night the wind and air turned cold, compared to during the day, and he has little material to keep him warm. There are times when he would speak and confess to his video camera, saying his farewells to his friends and family. Then the time came: he tried to amputate his arm off. Using a dull knife, he whacked it on his arm, not feeling pain below the outer layers of his arm. Then he opened it up and started poking around at the yellow tissue. There wasn’t much blood as he thought there would be and saw that he couldn’t cut through his bone; this leaves him stuck. In the chapters about his past, he talked about more mountain climbing, and once he got caught in an avalanche with two friends. The three-some survived but his friends blamed Aron for triggering the life-death situation and never spoke to him again. The talk was mostly about how he ended up living in Aspen and heading out for this adventure, leading up to where he is now. The viewpoint strays away from Aron’s as it makes its way to the two women Aron met before venturing off on his own. They had agreed to meet up later that day and not seeing him, began to worry a bit. Back home, Aron’s friends start to wonder where he’s at, since he didn’t arrive home or to work. They called the police to notify a missing person, but the operator didn’t tell them that Aron wasn’t lost long enough for a rescue party to start looking.

“Fascinated, I poke at the gash with the tool” (Ralston 386).

            I chose this quote because this was during the middle of his ‘surgery’. While reading Aron poking around his arm, I also got curious. I don’t know why it got me curious all of a sudden, because I had already knew that he was going to do this, but still. While some people would feel disgusted while reading his detailed description on observing his gash, I was quite…entertain (?) somehow. Maybe because I have read gorier books and shows than this…but anyways! I mainly chose this quote because out of the many sentences about his examination, this one clearly relates to how I was feeling during the time I was reading this.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #1 (Pg 17-216)

Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #1

            Aron Ralston begins by describing the setting he is exploring in, such as the different rock and rock formations. He describes the equipment he brought with him on his trip. He switches between each chapter to talk about the present (where he is now) and the past (how he ended up to be who he is). In the chapters he talked about his past, he wrote that his family moved to Colorado when he was 12 and his first impression was it was a place that completely involved skiing; he soon found out that it wasn’t true and found a passion in skiing. This passion led to him hiking, camping, and climbing at different places, mostly the high mountains in Colorado. He then talked about all the trips he made and the people he met. There were times in which he almost got caught in a life-death situation but he managed to survive them. When he talked about the present, he mentioned what he did and what he had planned to do. What he also mentioned was that he didn’t tell anyone the exact details of what he was going to do, or where exactly he was going; this turns out to be a problem later. Before  fully venturing out on his own, Aron meets two women who journey with him for a bit. They soon part ways and Aron continues his adventure. Then the incident happens when he tries to step/cross over a boulder, causing it to make itself and Aron fall. Somehow during the fall, Aron’s right wrist gets pinned against the wall and the boulder; it is actually holding part of the boulder up and against the wall. With limited food, water, and no way to contact anyone, Aron is trap.

“They also told me that if you were to shout at a bear, wave your arms, stomp aggressively toward it, and then hit it rocks, nine times out of ten you could count on being mauled” (Ralston 109).

            I chose this quote because once I read it, I burst out laughing! So Aron was hiking in a national park, and had planned this big trip to go to around 15 or so national parks in the United States and Canada in a month or so. He hiked in his first destination and he met a black bear. The black bear was coming towards him for Aron’s pack of food, making him run barefoot in the frozen ground (it was in the winter). The bear kept strolling behind him and Aron tied the food pack to a uplifted tree root. He returned to find that the bear left but Aron couldn’t get a wink of sleep in fear of the bear returning. When Aron came back for his food pack, he found it in the bear’s jaws and tried to frighten him off by screaming, waving a stick in the air, and making noises. The bear left but when Aron came back to his camp, the bear had gotten its revenge by tearing down his tent. While making his trip back, the bear kept stalking Aron and he tried the methods in the above quote to the bear. I started laughing because he did all of that and didn’t die. I sometimes watch survival episodes on the Travel Channel and I think they said that to scare off a bear, you have to make yourself appear larger. Now I’m not really sure who’s right, the ranger’s or the survivalist’s advice.