Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #3 (Pgs 432-632)

Between a Rock and a Hard Place Blogpost #3

            As Aron’s death draws nearer, he gives up on his plans to free himself and only tries to maintain body heat. From his lack of water, he began to die of dehydration. Aron hallucinates about his past memories, his friends and his family while his conscious drifts back and forth between reality and imagination. The nights are worse because his body shivers from the coldness and his physical being in that condition makes it worse. On Wednesday, Aron came up with the idea to smask the gaint boulder with a smaller one, one that’s made out of the similar sandstone. The idea doesn’t work but he still keeps doing it, and Aron records on his video camera again, saying his last words for his funeral and property. He accepted death now and is prepared to leave the world; it was April 30. On the rock above his head, he carved out ‘RIP ARON, OCT 75, APR 03’, as if it was his head stone. Then as he’s about to drift off into another dream, he visions himself and a similar child on his shoulder; this belief gave him new hope. He wakes up to find himself still alive on May 1^st and then he works on pounding the rock again. While brushing away dirt particles off his arm with his knife, he accidentally ripped off a bit of decayed skin. The idea soon came to him: he could snap his fore arm into two to escape! He starts using his dull knife to saw through his flesh, tendons, muscles, arteries, veins, and tissues. After an hour of cutting, Aron is free from the boulder and wrapping his arm up, he begins to pack his stuff and leave the area to find essential water. He climbs back to the big pool he was at with the two women in the beginning and fills up his water supply and at the same time himself. Aron then begins the journey to his truck and he finds a family of three hiking. From there, he is rescue by a helicopter and taken to a small hospital. While Aron was still stuck at the boulder, his roommates and boss at work became even more worried. They contacted all of his friends by hacking into Aron’s email and tried to glean any recent information they’ve heard from Aron. So by the time Aron was cutting his arm, the police were already looking for his in the desert and found his truck. They warned other hikers to keep an eye out for Aron and the family of three knew that the crazed, bloody man that called towards them was Aron. So Aron was rescue, transferred from the small hospital to a larger one, and was reunited with his family. He had to stay there for months because of surgeries and an infection from his knife. After Aron was released, he spent time with his family and all of his friends. Even then, he still climbs mountains and later, he returned to Blue John Canyon with a few of his friends and an entire team from NBC. He continued to do all of the sports he used to do and didn’t regret the experience he gained from the incident because he gave him a chance to be reborn again. Aron ends his biographical novel by stating that “saying farewell is also a bold and powerful beginning” (Ralston 632).

“Through the fall and winter, I returned to lead climbing on rock, mountain biking, ice climbing, backcountry telemark skiing, cross-country skate skiing, and solo winter mountaineering” (Ralston 631).

            I chose this quote because I was amazed. Even though I have read Aron almost die from his experience, I would have never thought that he would still continue to do what he loves to do. Well, if I had gone through that experience, I would have been emotionally (and mentally) scarred because I would have almost died. I would have never had the guts to keep doing daring hobbies. But it didn’t surprise me as much because while Aron was talking about his past, I founded out that he’s that kind of guy to do such stuff. So yeah, I was amazed how Aron could still keep going, even though he only has one hand.