Product Description

One of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told -- Aron Ralston's searing account of his six days trapped in one of the most remote spots in America, and how one inspired act of bravery brought him home.

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 then committed the most extreme act imaginable to save himself.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place -- a brilliantly written, funny, honest, inspiring, and downright astonishing report from the line where death meets life -- will surely take its place in the annals of classic adventure stories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27983 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743492829
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In a moving account of strength in the face of adversity, Ralston presents the full story behind the 2003 event that became worldwide news: his self-amputation of his right arm after it was caught between a boulder and a canyon wall during what began as a routine day hike in the Utah Canyons. An experienced climber, Ralston, 28, effectively shows he wasn't a risk-taker, and alternates between describing how his jaunt turned into a nightmare when a huge stone suddenly came unstuck as he used it to climb down a ledge, and recalling early experiences that changed his novice attitudes toward hiking, which he admits "were not intrinsically safe." Ralston candidly renders the details of six days of entrapment, using transcribed monologues from videotapes he made while trapped, including his increasingly exhausted thoughts as well as poignant farewells to his family. But his best writing details his self-amputation and his subsequent march to safety, in which he rappelled one-armed down a hill and then hiked six miles before someone found him. Ralston's prose is never gruesome, nor is it used to shock, even as he describes first breaking his forearm, and then slipping "into some sort of autopilot" as he cuts through muscle fibers to detach the arm. It's truly thrilling when he finishes and is free: "A crystalline moment shatters and the world is a different place." 16 pages of color photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - From midday Saturday, April 26, 2003, until midday Thursday, May 1, Ralston was pinned between a boulder and a canyon wall in a remote area of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. He had little food and water. No one would even wonder where he was until he didn't show up for work on Tuesday. Unable to sit, lie down, use his right arm (that was the part between the rock and the wall), or sleep, he knew right away that he was in for an excruciatingly difficult time. Those 120 hours of what he calls "uninterrupted experience" tested to the fullest his physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being. His eventual rescue led to international headlines, partially due to his dramatic means of escape: he severed his arm with a cheap, dull, dirty knife. This is a searing and amazingly detailed rendition of his ordeal, along with accounts of several of Ralston's previous wilderness adventures. He is one active and tough guy, but readers never get the sense that he is boastful or seeking notoriety. Rather, he seems genuinely intrigued, even mildly befuddled, by his insatiable drive to be active in the wild. One could say he takes too many risks, and that he has a tendency toward carelessness. He himself notes this. But the man's drive and devotion to his calling are nothing but admirable. Sixteen pages of color photographs add considerably to readers' experience of this nuanced, gripping survival story that belongs in most collections. - Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Could you cut off your own arm if it were the only way to save yourself? Aron Ralston made headlines by doing just that. This account of how he was trapped in an isolated Utah canyon for six days, and how he methodically went about extricating himself, is more than just another tale about those who head into the wilderness seeking their bliss and get lost.

A former Intel engineer, Ralston identifies with Chris McCandless, the introspective seeker of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, which raised true adventure to a new level -- and to the bestseller charts. But McCandless was a loner and hobo who abandoned his possessions, burned his money and died of starvation in Alaska while acting out what Krakauer believed was a complicated rebellion against his father. By contrast, Ralston initially comes across as a cocky adrenaline junkie, loving son and punctual employee who nevertheless courts danger.

Born in 1975, Ralston was scared of snow when his parents first moved from Indiana to Colorado. But he adapted spectacularly. While still in his teens he was skiing, climbing, rafting and planning to climb in winter all 59 of Colorado's Fourteeners -- peaks over 14,000 feet high. He graduated from college with a double major in mechanical engineering and French, as well as a minor in piano performance, although strangely he says nothing of his musical ability or the accident's effect on it.

His resumé was filled with close encounters. A bear stalked him in Grand Teton National Park. He nearly drowned in the Grand Canyon. He was trapped high on a mountain in a snowstorm. While he was back-country skiing, his "cavalier attitude" led him to choose a route that triggered an avalanche. It nearly buried him and two friends -- both of whom, he admits, have refused to talk to him since.

"Rather than regret those choices," he writes, "I swore to myself that I would learn from their consequences. Most simply, I came to understand that my attitudes were not intrinsically safe." As we know now, he didn't learn. It is as exasperating to read his confessions of hotdogging and recklessness as it is inspiring to see how logical he was once he got stuck.

His fateful weekend begins with climbing a major peak in Colorado, then speeding off in his jeep to mountain bike to a remote trailhead for what he expects will be a fun day of slithering through sandstone labyrinths, his headphones blaring Phish music. He takes almost no food and very little water. Nor does he tell anyone where he is headed. Then he accidentally jiggles loose an enormous rock that wedges his arm against a canyon wall. Realizing quickly that he might be facing death, he videotapes heartfelt goodbyes, including instructions on how to locate his IRA portfolio.

Warding off morbid thoughts, he launches ingenious self-rescue maneuvers. He tries chipping away pieces of the boulder. When that doesn't work, he rigs a pulley system in a futile effort to move it. As he describes, in excruciating detail, hour upon harrowing hour of dehydration and then delirium, we learn that he actually tried sawing off his limb early on, but failed. The moment that he figures out he must break the bones in his arm first so he can cut through soft tissue sounds horrible, yet Ralston feels triumphant.

If Aron Ralston had been just an accident waiting to happen, why should we care about him? First, because there are thousands of potential victims like him. Colorado officials estimate that a half-million people climbed at least one Fourteener last year. Adrenaline fever is contagious; on occasion it is deadly. Heedless wilderness tourists routinely wander off without so much as a water bottle. And anyone who has hiked solo has probably taken a wrong turn or a scary fall. Has it ever dawned on us what the consequences might be should we break a leg or get caught in a flash flood?

We also care because Ralston writes very well. His thoughts ricochet from anger to anguish to acceptance. He recounts the joy of risk, and he takes full responsibility: "The boulder did what it was there to do. Boulders fall. . . . You did this, Aron. . . . You chose . . . to do this descent into the slot canyon by yourself. . . . You created this accident. . . . You have been heading for this situation for a long time." His recital even takes on a weird humor as he notes that his self-amputation is more successful than his botched dissection of a sheep's eyeball in a ninth-grade science class.

Once he frees himself, the story accelerates into a riveting drama as he rappels one-handed down a cliff and staggers through rough terrain for miles, blood leaking through his tourniquet as he tries to find help. Aron Ralston went to Utah as just another rock jock; he emerges as a Gen X action hero.

Reviewed by Grace Lichtenstein
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Compelling, riveting tale of survival and human strength
I agree with the last reviewer. The fact that Aron Ralston used poor judgment, i.e. hiking alone and not telling anyone where he was, only makes his story more compelling. Hasn't everyone made a huge mistake that leads to a painful, regretful plight?
Calling the media sensationalistic,in this instance, is just plain silly--amputing one's arm in order to save one's life IS a sensational, highly unusual event. I don't think the media or Aron is making it anything more than what it was. The charge that Aron is self-promoting is just as ridiculous. After you read the book, you will see that Ralston is a humble person with great integrity and strength. He is simply telling his own, true, unbelievable story. Bottomline, this book is incredibly well-written, moving and not to be missed.

Must-read literature
Aron's story is intelligent, sincere, warm and at many times, funny. As amazing as the story of his ordeal is, what is nearly as amazing is that something this well-written was created by the person it involved, not a ghost writer. It is nothing short of fine literature, not to mention an obviously compelling story.

Aron inspires us all. He shows us that a motivated person can save himself, and that the force of life can beat unbelievable odds against the force of death.

A Good Story Hiding Behind A Lot of History
Who couldn't be fascinated with the story of a young man, trapped for days in a dry canyon in the middle of the Utah badlands, eventually cutting off his own arm and walking out to be rescued? That basic story is the reason I bought this book. Having read a good deal of the stories in the newspaper about Ralston and his ordeal, I certainly wasn't looking for more narrative like most of the people who reviewed this book. I knew pretty much WHAT had happened. I was more interested in the WHY and the HOW. This book provided that in spades.

What ultimately turned me off to this book, and the reason that my copy is now sitting in a used book store and not on my bookshelf, is because of two overriding factors that took away from both the narrative and the discussions of Ralston's past and his outdoor philosophy. The first thing that put me off to this book is the fact that Ralston never learns anything. Sure, he laments the time with friends and family that he has not valued as much as he should have and the time he should have spent with other people instead of climbing peaks and going out alone into the wilderness. But at the end of it all he doesn't change. Once he has recovers and overcomes the mechanical problems of climbing again he goes right back to solo trips and dangerous climbs to 14,000+ feet.

The second reason this book only earned three stars in my opinion is the same as many others here. Length! So much time was spent on his prior achievements, so many pages spent telling us his philosophy and who he looked up to, and (most of all) all the myriad other times he should have died but didn't. And yet, after all that exposition and history I came away feeling like he was simply building up how great he was. Against his own advice in the book, he was defining himself by what he did.

All that aside, I certainly don't regret purchasing the book or spending the time to read it. It was an interesting look into the mind of the Gen-X, Neo-Hippy (forgive the term) similar to that which pervades the increasingly common thinking on the environment and the outdoors. And the narrative of his entrapment and ultimate escape is definitely worth the time.