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.