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"In Between a Rock and a Hard
Place, Aron Ralston propels readers through his grueling experience in the Utah Canyonlands where he was trapped by a boulder for six days; he finally had to cut away his hand and forearm to survive. This book is not only for hikers and climbers; it is for anyone interested in how the human spirit reacts to an
overwhelming, life-threatening situation."
---Peggy de Broux
Comprehensive
Book Review by Peggy de Broux
Title: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Author: Aron Ralston
Publisher: Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2004
ISBN: 0-7434-9281-1
Pages: 342; pictures (color) and maps of the area he hiked; also, a glossary of terms for armchair hikers, climbers and skiers.
Reviewer: Peggy de Broux, Editor and Reviewer
for SpirituallyFit.com.
Aron Ralston writes his biographical description of his hiking and mountain-climbing experiences, alternating between the past—from the time when he first skied (1987), his various outings with family, friends, climbing partners, skiing many places in the North American Continent—and the “present” of the account which describes how he came to be caught by a boulder in a seldom-visited canyon in Utah. He became famous because he extricated himself by cutting off an arm (the hardcover photo is quite striking: sitting atop rough rocks, Aron holds his artificial right arm in his hand, thus we know from the beginning he will escape, but the tale is in HOW he does this.)
Aron –as he refers to himself in this narrative that is both completely autobiographical and a description of others’ actions as though he were right in the room with them—moves from a fairly lyrical writer to one unafraid to expose the nitty-gritty of what it took, during his six days in a tight spot in Blue John Canyon, Utah, to free himself from what he thought was a 200-pound boulder. (It was later suggested it weighed more like half a ton; it is no wonder he could not make much progress trying to chip it away from his imprisoned right hand and forearm.)
Aron begins the book with a beautiful epigraph from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire:
This is the most beautiful place on earth.
There are many such places. . .for myself I’ll take Moab, Utah. I don’t mean the town itself, of course, but the country which surrounds it. . .The red dust and the burnt cliffs and the lonely sky—all that which lies beyond the end of the roads. (p. 1)
Aron’s odyssey begins April 26, 2004, on a mountain bike in Utah’s Canyonlands, noting his surroundings in wonderful prose before he parks the bike to begin a partial-day hike:
. . .herds trample sinuous tracks through the indigenous life that spreads out in the ample space: a lace of grasses, foot-tall hedgehog cacti, and black microbiotic crust cloak the red earth. (p. 5)
Aron then switches to hiking. His well-equipped backpack includes little food and water—he planned only to see the well-known petroglyphs and pictographs in this canyon: “some of them are the oldest and best examples of their design type in the world. . .” (p. 3). By this time very experienced in what he needs, he’s prepared with maps, rappelling equipment, rope, video-cam, sports cap. Soon, after chatting with a couple of young women on holiday from Outward Bound, Aron negotiates some of the very narrow canyons, scrambles over huge chockstones, one of which wobbles one way—endangering his left hand—then pins his right hand with its huge weight. He begins his six-day unexpected adventure: forced to stand up until he rigs a seat in which to rest periodically. Each passing day marks time he doesn’t have: food runs out; water is gone; hope seems impossible.
He undergoes hallucinations for several days after he has racked his brain to invent a way out—ANY way out. The “dreams” are fantastic and intriguing but lonely: no one talks to him; he is not a part of the action as we usually are in dreams.
The narrative alternates back and forth between his dilemma, then to the busy—sometimes frantic—life of this 27-year-old. After university, he takes on office work with Intel but develops such a love of the out-of-doors that he eventually quits this job (even though, through inexperience, he had been dangerously chased by a bear in the Grand Tetons). He gains much experience leading hikes, becomes a part of a search and rescue team, moves around, by which time he formulates a plan to attempt ever more difficult climbs. Living and working in Aspen, Aron decides to climb—alone, in winter—all the peaks in Colorado which are at 14,000 feet and over. He calls these the "fourteeners” and takes a lot of risks. The biggest risk, overall, is that he does not always apprise anyone where he will be. This becomes the almost fatal flaw of his odyssey in the canyon: no one knew he was near Moab, let alone that he was actually in Utah over a weekend, not his roommate, not his friends, not his family. He realizes after the accident that “[he] violated the prime directive of wilderness travel in failing to leave a detailed trip plan with a responsible person” (pp. 27-28), although when he left he had not really decided, himself, where to go that weekend.
Another quality results from his ever-growing interest in pushing himself: on a skiing weekend, he egged on two friends to ski a dangerous bowl at Resolution Peak in Colorado. All three become buried in a Grade 5 avalanche. It takes all the skills of Aron and the other skier to finally find the third. He admitted to himself that this event lost him two friends: they never spoke to him again.
At some point in his forced bivouac in the canyon, he begins to recognize ego-driven qualities in himself. During the first half of the book, this reviewer became rather put out with his ego: he risks not just
his own life but that of others. While in the Grand Canyon, for example, with his sister and some friends, he jumps into the Colorado River and almost drowns. It is only with a great deal of ingenuity on his friends’ part that he is pulled out. What he finally realizes during a long night in his rock room that he is NOT his actions, for which he usually was searching for approval for his feats. He had heard somewhere “about the concept of deep play, wherein a person’s recreational pursuits carry a gross imbalance of risk and reward” (p. 94). This certainly fits the Aron of the pre-Canyonlands accident. Growing reasoning comes to him: “That boulder did what it was there to do. . .You chose to come here today.” In the same internal monologue, he thinks perhaps Kristi and Megan whom he met were angels trying to help him (they urged him to come on their hike), and he chose not to (pp. 107-08).
During much of his ordeal, he videotapes messages to loved ones, allocates his property, asks that his ashes be divided for scattering at some of his favorite places.
He is rescued, of course—we knew he had to be—and becomes a symbol of courage to many people. Readers can finally believe in a change in his character: “My accident in and rescue from Blue John Canyon were the most beautifully spiritual experiences of my life. . .”(p. 342).
A final note: the quite varied epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter reveal a philosophical look at life, quoting from Mark Twain to Joseph Campbell to musicians like the Jerry Garcia Band and Mark Twight as well as fellow climber Barry Blanchard. A man truly between a rock (literally) and a hard place gives new meaning to an old cliché.
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