by Aron Ralston
More cycles. Three A.M., Tuesday morning, hour sixty. I mark my time trapped here at two and a half days. I’ve adjusted my sipping schedule to fit the shorter cycle duration. I delicately draw my water bottle from its perch and note the amount remaining: a scant three ounces. Holding the bottle between my legs, I unscrew the top with my free left hand. I hold the lid back, raise the bottle, and before I fully wet the inside of my lower lip, I force my hand to withdraw and put the bottle down, as I have done once an hour through the night.
The last mouthful of my water supply has become a sacred element. In effect, the liquid has transubstantiated from something of this earth to something holy and eternal—it has become time itself, and in time, it has become life. The longer that water lasts, the longer I will last.
Or so I tell myself. I’ve developed several signs that tell me dehydration has already set upon me, and even if I conserve my last water, I’ll still die fairly soon. My body no longer has enough fluids to perform at an optimum level. My eyes are sunken and dry—I avoid looking at myself in my video-camera episodes because of the gaunt stretch of skin over my cheekbones. The desert air contributes its irritants to my contact lenses, but my eyes can’t flush the contaminants. As the dehydration has stressed my heart muscles, my heartbeat has become weak, sometimes erratic, and fast—I time it at a resting rate of 120 beats per minute, over 60 percent faster than normal for me. Despite my elevated heart rate, my circulation has slowed over the last three days as my blood has thickened, inhibiting the delivery of nutrients to my organs and the removal of metabolic wastes. My pump is burning up as the fluid it’s trying to move solidifies in my body’s internal piping. With my blood pressure steadily dropping, my body temperature fluctuates unnaturally, and the slightest breeze sends me into another shivering fit. Drastically losing liquid mass, my organs suffer the brunt of the dehydration; in all, my body is losing between four and five pounds a day. The skin on the back of my hand has shriveled into reptilian crinkles; the poor elasticity allows me to form little tents by plucking at my skin with my teeth.
But for all the physical signs of my body’s dire need for hydration, nothing, nothing compares to the anguish of my thirst: unslakable…unquenchable…unsatisfiable…insuppressible…inextinguishable.
I find myself wishing to get this all over with simply to bring relief to the thirst. As my end comes, it will be in cardiovascular collapse, but I wonder if the thirst won’t take care of the job first.
Two hours later, it is five A.M., and time for my hourly water ritual. I place the water bottle in my crotch and again single-handedly unscrew the lid. I ease my legs’ grip on the bottle and begin to raise it to my mouth. But the lid unexpectedly snags on my harness, and the bottle slips, falling to my lap. My sluggish brain responds too slowly for my hand to catch the bottle before it tilts almost horizontal, and a splash of the sacrament darkens my tan shorts, turning the red dust to a patina of shining mud.
Fuck a nut, Aron. Pay attention! Look what you did!
Water is time. With that spill, how many hours did I just lose? Maybe six hours, maybe ten hours, maybe half a day? The mistake hits my morale like a train, destroying my protective walls of discipline and meticulousness that had been keeping despair at bay. Regardless of what I thought earlier, losing half of my remaining supply of water makes me realize how psychologically attached to it I am. Even if I have so little water left that, physiologically speaking, I might as well not have any, emotionally, I feel like I’ve given away half of the rest of my life.
I have been shivering in my wrappings, with my head in my rope bag, trying to push away the nagging cold, when I hear a shout in my sleep-deprived brain. It is just after six-fifteen A.M., Tuesday.
“Larry!” My mom yells out my dad’s name. I see her in her bathrobe, bolting downstairs from their bedroom to tell my dad some terrible news she has just received. The image ends before I see her reach my dad. Different from a memory or a dream, the clip was more like a TV set involuntarily switched on in my mind, broadcasting from my parents’ house. Was it something that already happened? Or a premonition of something yet to come? Either way, I’m fairly sure that I am the reason my mom was rushing to my dad. But was it to say she found out I’m in trouble, or that I’m found, or that I’m dead? It could have been anything.
Gradually, light resurrects the dimensions of the canyon, and I feel buoyed by the knowledge that I’ve survived another night. Now that there’s enough visibility, I decide to update the record of my situation with another round of talking to my video camera.
Wiping at my left eye, I smear my hand across my brow and face, then sigh. I check the framing to make sure I’m at least partially on-screen, but I avoid looking at the camera as I talk.
“It’s six-forty-five in the morning on Tuesday morning,” I repeat to myself.
“I figure by now that Leona has missed me, hopefully, since I didn’t show up at the party last night. Another hour and a half, they’ll miss me for not showing up for work. I keep thinking about it. My best-case scenario is that maybe they notify the police, and they put ’em on a twenty-four-hour hold to officially file a report, a missing person’s report. Which makes it, like, maybe noon tomorrow that it even gets official that I’m gone.”
My frustration mounts, and I’m on the verge of tearing up. “Goddamn. It’s really sinking in, how dumb this is. So many things about it. So many things. It’s gonna be a really long time before anyone gets to me. I was thinking about it more and more. They’re gonna have to pneumatic-drill this rock to pieces or amputate my arm just to get me out of here. That’s when somebody finds me and then goes to get the proper tools. And then it’s a haul up over two considerable staircases to get out to a helicopter landing zone, and then it’s an hour flight to Grand Junction, maybe less than that. Maybe it’s a half hour. Whatever.”
Imagining a team hauling a pneumatic jackhammer down Blue John Canyon to break the rock apart with me still stuck under it makes the idea of rescue seem even more improbable than before. Just getting me free will be a tremendous task, and evacuating me in a litter out of the slot…The space is so confined, I’m not sure there’s a feasible route to use.
The logistics nightmare overloads my hope. I know it’s all theoretical, but even in theory, it sounds like a multi-day ordeal once I’m located. Moving a subject in a litter a hundred yards down a wide road grade takes five minutes with six people. Make it a narrowing winding trail, and it could be a half hour of effort. As soon as there’s a haul or lowering system involved, it adds an hour or two, and that’s with ideal conditions. Each level of complexity adds time and resource demands and elevates the risk to the rescuers. For me, each one of those chockstones I crawled over or under represents a diminished likelihood that I would survive the time it would take to evacuate my useless body. If I’m alive when a rescue team finds me, I will probably die before reaching definitive medical care. Realizing it doesn’t matter—I’ll be dead before searchers get to this part of the canyon, anyway—I close my left eye in an unconscious grimacing wink and continue with the videoing. I’m exasperated.
“I tried…I tried cutting my arm off. I couldn’t even barely break the skin with this stupid knife. I tried a couple different blades, but all I did was just mark myself up. I could barely even get any blood to draw, it’s probably so thick at this point.
“I do still have the tiniest bit of water left. Well, actually, I’ve resorted…I’ve had a couple pretty good sips of my own urine that I saved in my CamelBak. I sorta let it distill. The sediment separated from the more liquidy stuff.”
Emphasizing each word, I elaborate, “It tastes like hell,” and pause, smacking my lips apart when I try to swallow. “I have about a bite of burrito left that I can barely stomach anyways.
“I tried moving the rock some more. It’s not going anywhere.
“So it’s been not quite seventy hours since I left on my bike from Horseshoe Trailhead, during which time I have consumed three lite
rs of water and a couple mouthfuls of piss. Food I’m not so worried about, although I am getting too tired to the point of doing anything. I can’t even chip away at the rock anymore. It’s…I tried, and I don’t have the energy and the gumption…It’s ridiculous.”
Disgusted with my impotence, I shudder and then moan, “Unaaannggh.” Shaking my head, I frown and grimace, then compose myself during a long blink and look straight at the camera for what I want to say next.
“Mom, Dad, I really love you guys. I wanted to take this time to say the times we’ve spent together have been awesome. I haven’t appreciated you in my own heart the way I know I could. Mom, I love you. Thank you so much for coming to visit me in Aspen. Dad, thank you for the time last year when we went on your trip with the Golden Leaf Tour. Those were some of my favorite times that I’ve had with you in a long, long time. Thank you both for being understanding, and supportive, and encouraging during this last year. I really have lived this last year. I wish I had learned some lessons more astutely, more rapidly, than what it took to learn. I love you. I’ll always be with you.”
Tightening my lips, I feel tears welling in my eyes. I bow my head in another long blink, then give the camera a nod, as though I’m saying goodbye, before I reach to pause the tape. A doleful breeze interjects itself in the canyon; the night’s calm is at an end. When I restart the video camera, my thoughts turn to my sister and the cloud of sorrow that will cast a shadow over her graduation and wedding this summer.
“I wanted to say to Sonja and Zack that I really wish you the best in your upcoming life together. You guys are great together. Sonja, you’ve got a great career in front of you. I know you guys are gonna both be very happy. I wish I could be there to see it start off. You’ll graduate about a month from now. Do great things with your life—that will honor me the best. Thanks.”
It makes me happy to think about my sister. Even though I got good grades in school, she came along and one-upped me in every arena, and I love her for it. She cares about learning—she’s planning to be a volunteer teacher. I’m glad for her, but I’m also glad for me. It’s as though Sonja will repay the educational debt I’ve accrued by having taken from the system without giving back. I’m more proud of what she’s done in college than of what I’ve done since I graduated six years ago. Even with me gone, big things will happen in our family because of her; it reassures me to know she has such aspirations.
Another breeze passes up from the unseen recesses of the canyon behind me, making me worry about a change in the weather. I can already discern a sheet of clouds thicker than any I’ve yet seen. No sign of thunderheads, but I wouldn’t necessarily see them before they unleashed a flash flood. I’d forgotten about that risk. While I’ve got the camera out, I decide to record a few more video notes in case the rains come. I start the tape again, panning up to the debris over my head.
“It’s also occurred to me that the flash-flood potential is still present. This stuff all up above me there, it’s all been put there…The rocks I pulled down on top of me, it was all put there by floods. There’s four pretty major canyons upstream from me that all converge in this three-foot-wide gap where I am. Even if I’m dead at that point, it’s gonna…it’s gonna fuck things up pretty bad. This footage will be unviewable, and my body will be pretty mangled. That’s really not here or there. I was almost wishing for it to come. In the one sense that maybe I could get a little bit of water. I don’t know if that sounds ridiculous or not, but I was thinking about it last night. I guess at the point where you’re sipping on your bodily waste products…I know I shouldn’t be doing it. It’s got too many salts and stuff in it, it’s just gonna hasten the process.
“Three days, I’ve been out of water for a day and a half. That probably means I’ve got another day and a half. I’m gonna hold strong. But if I even see Wednesday noon, I’ll be amazed.”
I stop the tape. Those are tough words. Verbalizing that I’m giving myself thirty more hours to live leaves me with a sense of finality that rubs my psyche the wrong way. I put the video recorder up on the chockstone, and my body involuntarily slumps back into the harness. The words echo and rebound inside my head—“if I even see Wednesday”—until they hit a synapse holding on to a store of gumption. The next thing I know, I’m stripping webbing off my right arm and tying the purple strands into Prusik loops once again. With the practice I had yesterday, I set up the 6:1 haul-system rigging in a fraction of the time it took me to figure it out the first time, clipping the rope tied to the chockstone through the carabiners and configuring the Prusiks with a single-handed dexterity that impresses my sluggish brain. My fumbling through the night left me thinking my coordination had dried up. Stashing my water bottle, urine supply, knife, and cameras in my backpack, I clear the top of the chockstone, lastly putting my scratched sunglasses on top of my head.
“Ready for liftoff,” I say to myself after double-checking the Prusiks to make sure they will lock off in the proper direction. Positioned just above my waist, the foot loops are a little higher than they were yesterday—I must have used a bit more rope in the system this time—but I mount the lower one first with my left foot and step up into the right one.
OK, now move the boulder, Aron. Do it. Bounce. Harder. Pull on the rope—yank on it. Bounce and yank. Harder! You’ve got to do this. Make it move!
Grunting, flailing, heaving, I bounce my weight in the stirrups and pull on the haul line. “Come on, move, dammit!”
Nothing. I am completely powerless against the mass of this stone and the friction of these walls. My feet pull themselves from the foot loops, as if they have a mind of their own that already knows I won’t be giving it another go. I am defeated again. There is nothing left for me to cling to. I am violently drowning in this Gothic isolation; the more I fight it, the tighter it closes in, squeezing the life from me. Resting for fifteen minutes, I feel like crying, but my dry sobs don’t produce anything. It’s as though I’m too dejected even to waste my energy on tears. What good could it do me to cry? It would squander what little liquid my body has left.
Slowly, I become aware of the cold stare of my knife from inside my backpack. There is a reason for everything, including why I brought that knife with me, and suddenly, I know what I am about to do. Mustering up my courage, I dismantle a purple Prusik loop from the rigging and tie it around my biceps, preparing the rest of my tourniquet as I’d refined it yesterday—CamelBak tubing insulation wrapped twice around my forearm, knotted twice and clipped with a ’biner that I twist six times and attach to the purple webbing to secure it.
I note the time with a glance at my watch on the backpack strap at my knees: 7:58 A.M.
Folding open the shorter of the two knives, I close the handle and grasp it in my fist, the blade jutting out from below my pinky finger. Raising the tool above my right arm, I pick a spot on the top of my forearm, next to a freckle and just up from the marks I scratched into my skin yesterday morning. I hesitate, jerking my left hand to a halt a foot above my target. I recock my tool, and before I can stop myself a second time, my fist violently thrusts the inch-and-a-half-long blade down, burying it to the hilt in the meat of my forearm.
“Holy crap, Aron, what did you just do?”
My vision warps with astonishment. The light quality in the canyon bursts into beige contrast, highlights becoming bright pale tan and shadows changing to deep brown as if I’ve crossed over into a sepia-toned movie. I bend my head to my arm, and my surroundings leave hallucinogenic trails behind them, responding unhurriedly to my movements, as though this pseudo-film is being played at two-thirds normal speed. I was half expecting the knife to glance off my arm, but when I relax my grip, I can see the folded handle of the multi-tool thrust perpendicular into my arm. Yesterday it didn’t seem possible that my knife could ever get through my skin, but it did. When I grasp the tool more firmly and wiggle it slightly, the blade connects with something hard, my upper forearm bone. I tap the knife down and feel it knocking on my radiu
s.
Whoa. That’s so bizarre.
All at once, I am curious. There is barely any discernible sensation of the blade below skin level. My nerves seem to be concentrated in the outer layers of my arm. I confirm this by drawing the knife out, slicing up at my skin from underneath. Oh yeah, there they are. The flesh stretches with the blade, broadcasting signals through my arm as I open an inch-wide hole at the site. Letting the pain dissipate, I note that there is remarkably little blood coming from the torn cells in my skin; the capillaries must have closed down for the time being. Fascinated, I poke at the gash with the tool. Ouch. Pushing the knife back into the gory hole, I probe at the inner constitution of my arm. The epidermis is twice as thick as I thought it would be, and leathery-tough. Yellow fatty tissue lies under my skin in a membrane layer around my muscle. When I root around, my view disappears as burgundy-colored blood seeps into the wound. I tap at the bone again, feeling the vibration of each strike through my left thumb and forefinger. Even damped by surrounding tissues, the hollow thumping of the blade tip against my upper forearm bone resonates up into my elbow. The soft thock-thock-thock tells me I have reached the end of this experiment. I cannot cut into or through my forearm bones.
