|
|
|
Guest Biographies
|
Aron
Ralston
 It started out as a simple hike in the Utah canyonlands on a
warm Saturday afternoon. For Aron Ralston, a
twenty-seven-year-old mountaineer and outdoorsman, a walk
into the remote Blue John Canyon was a chance to get a break
from a winter of solo climbing Colorado's highest and
toughest peaks. He'd earned this weekend vacation, and
though he met two charming women along the way, by early
afternoon he finally found himself in his element: alone,
with just the beauty of the natural world all around him.
It was 2:41 P.M. Eight miles from his truck, in a deep and
narrow slot canyon, Aron was climbing down off a wedged
boulder when the rock suddenly, and terrifyingly, came
loose. Before he could get out of the way, the falling stone
pinned his right hand and wrist against the canyon wall.
And so began six days of hell for Aron Ralston. With scant
water and little food, no jacket for the painfully cold
nights, and the terrible knowledge that he'd told no one
where he was headed, he found himself facing a lingering
death -- trapped by an 800-pound boulder 100 feet down in
the bottom of a canyon. As he eliminated his escape options
one by one through the days, Aron faced the full horror of
his predicament: By the time any possible search and rescue
effort would begin, he'd most probably have died of
dehydration, if a flash flood didn't drown him before that.
What does one do in the face of almost certain death? Using
the video camera from his pack, Aron began recording his
grateful good-byes to his family and friends all over the
country, thinking back over a life filled with adventure,
and documenting a last will and testament with the hope that
someone would find it. (For their part, his family and
friends had instigated a major search for Aron, the amazing
details of which are also documented here for the first
time.) The knowledge of their love kept Aron Ralston alive,
until a divine inspiration on Thursday morning solved the
riddle of the boulder. Aron Ralston was forced to do the
unthinkable in order to save his life -- cut off his own arm
below the elbow.
An excerpt from Aron Ralston’s book, "Between a Rock and a
Hard Place."
|
|
“The chockstone [a midsize boulder]
shudders as my body’s weight puts
enough torque on the rock to disturb it from its position.
Instantly,
know this is trouble, and instinctively I let go of the rotating
boulder
to land on the round rocks on the canyon floor. Looking up, the
backlit
chockstone falling towards my head consumes the sky. Fear shoots
my hands
over my head…
“The next three seconds play out at a tenth their normal speed.
Time
dilates, like I’m dreaming, and my reactions decelerate. In slow
motion:
The rock smashes my left hand against the south wall; my eyes
register the
collision and I yank my left arm back as the rock ricochets in
the
confined space; the boulder then crushes my right hand and
ensnares my
right arm at the wrist, palm in, thumb up, fingers extended; the
rock
slides another foot down the wall with my arm in tow, tearing
the skin off
the lateral side of my forearm. Then, silence.”
Excerpted from "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"
by Aron
Ralston. All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
without
written permission from Simon & Schuster.
"Between a Rock and a Hard Place" is published by Atria, an
imprint of
Simon & Schuster, which is owned by Viacom, parent company of
CBS.
|
|
Back to Biographies
Back to
Banff Mountain Festivals |
|
|
|
|
