Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“There’s a mostly unspoken acknowledgement among the voluntarily impoverished dues-payers of our towns that it’s better to be fiscally poor yet rich in experience—living the dream—than to be traditionally wealthy but live separate from one’s passions.”

This passage sheds light on Ralston’s preferences and priorities. Although some of his colleagues no doubt consider him foolish for doing so, Ralston leaves his job at Intel for a much lower-paying job in sales, which gives him far more time to explore his true passions in life. In addition, this passage exemplifies Ralston’s detailed and articulate writing style.

“What kind of luck do I have that this boulder, wedged here for untold ages, freed itself at the split second that my hands were in the way? Despite obvious evidence to the contrary, it seems astronomically infeasible that this happened.”

For a time after his accident, Ralston indulges in self-pity and fatalistic thinking. Here, for instance, he turns to the concept of luck, which has little explanatory power but feeds his misery. However, he soon finds that such avenues of thinking have little productive use and turns his attention to action, though he continues to vacillate between the two.

“It was significant to me that it could feel so good to make my body hurt by pushing so hard.”

Describing a formative experience racing up a mountain, this passage gives insight into Ralston’s outlook. Rather than avoiding pain, he sees it as a pathway to achievement and mental satisfaction. This realization leads him to push himself to ever-higher levels of physical fitness and take on increasingly greater risks.

“I was stunned, and can trace my fascination for canyons back to the emotions I felt at that viewpoint. I wanted to race down into the canyon, touch the towers that seemed like they would topple at any moment, and follow every path that laced around the formations until I became lost in the maze. […] At fourteen, I didn’t understand why I felt this way, but I had met a calling in my life.”

Passages like this reveal one of Ralston’s major purposes in the narrative. He wants to show not only how he survived and escaped from his predicament but also what led him there in the first place. In addition to the challenge and thrill of overcoming physical challenges, Ralston is struck by a sense of awe at nature’s majesty; as this quote shows, that sense of awe directly inspires him to explore, which is what he’s doing when he becomes trapped.

“I imagined I could hike until the sky went black, and to me, for a few hours, the sky in my world was a different color than just about anyone else’s. I thought about the chance that I was the highest person in Colorado, and it seemed extremely likely—virtually no one climbs fourteeners in the winter. Given that it’s the off-season for the other high mountains of North America, I figured there were fairly good odds that I was the highest person on the continent, too.”

Although Ralston derives genuine spiritual and physical satisfaction from climbing, passages like this one show that he does, or did at one point, also consider his achievements within competitive social contexts, valuing being the first or best to accomplish something. While competition closely relates to the self-improvement Ralston seeks, such passages raise questions about his balance between internal and external motivations.

“A brilliant fury of adrenaline contorted Bruce’s face as the gargantuan boulder ended its meteoric flight in a mammoth explosion of snow fifty yards uphill and—thank the heavens—forty yards behind Bruce.”

This passage, which describes a boulder falling near Ralston and his friend, Bruce, exemplifies Ralston’s voice as a writer and storyteller. Despite his varied and literary diction, he maintains a conversational tone through informal expressions like “thank the heavens.” Meanwhile, his frequent use of modifiers such as “brilliant,” “gargantuan,” and “meteoric” in this passage highlights his ornate prose. While the added details enhance the vividness of the events he describes, the result can be wordy at times.

“I learned about the concept of deep play, wherein a person’s recreational pursuits carry a gross imbalance of risk and reward. Without the potential for any real or perceived external gain—fortune, glory, fame—a person puts himself into scenarios of real risk and consequence purely for internal benefit: fun and enlightenment.”

At some point, Ralston realizes that his frequent near-death experiences represent a troubling pattern of risking his life for seemingly small rewards. Nevertheless, he continues to embark on such adventures because the high he gets from participating exceeds that available from any other avenue available to him. Even moments that might appear unpleasant to outsiders appeal to Ralston precisely because they’re challenging and unpleasant.

“With the solitude that came from being in places four months removed from others’ presence, I felt a sense of ownership of these cold high mountains, these buried alpine tarns, these sound-dampened forests; and a sense of kinship with the elk, deer, beaver, ermines, ptarmigans, and mountain goats. The more I visited their home, the more it felt like mine.”

This passage hints at why Ralston finds solo winter climbs so irresistible. By distancing himself from humanity and immersing himself in nature, he begins to feel a sense of identification with the places and animals he passes; his listing and naming several animals emphasizes the expansiveness of his vision, in which he welcomes a bond with a variety of creatures. In this context, the “ownership” he mentions doesn’t relate to the human concepts of possession and control but rather belonging.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

This excerpt from Ralston’s email to his coworkers upon his departure from Intel highlights his overall philosophy. His decision to leave his work without another job lined up may appear rash, but it leads to what Ralston considers one of the happiest years of his life as he devotes himself to his interests and passions. His emphasis on simply getting started acknowledges the typical barriers of hesitation and procrastination that keep many people from working toward their dreams.

“The thought occurred to me then that there are many shapes to the thing that separates life from death. Sometimes it’s obvious. […] Other times, it’s subtle, even imperceptible.”

Ralston senses the fragility of life when a small equipment malfunction leads to a fuel leak. Throughout his narrative, he has various other near-death experiences, in which small factors often determine the outcome. His acknowledgement that small factors beyond an individual’s control can take on significance in such moments hints at the complex relationship between circumstantial factors (broadly, good or bad luck) and the individual will to survive. Ralston finds that the proper response to such situations balances an awareness of and openness to all possible outcomes combined with a diligent effort to make the most of the situation.

“Mark was saying that he didn’t aspire to do winter solos, and it seemed like he was making sure I was doing them for the right reasons—climbing not for bragging rights, or the perceived admiration of others, but because it made me happy.”

While presenting his own philosophy toward adventure, Ralston also notes the valid concerns and differing outlooks of others, such as his friend Mark. This particular criticism of Ralston’s motivations resonates with him because at certain times he does define himself by his accomplishments and seeks to impress others. As he matures, he finds deeper, more personal motivations for doing what he does.

“On less dangerous but still adventurous trips, I pushed my limits for endurance, engaging in prolonged experiences of cathartic suffering to break down my interior walls, to cleanse my spirit for purer emotions than boredom and stress, and to surpass myself. Periodically, I would have a euphoric realization taking me beyond the filters of my brain, in which I understood that fear and pain existed only in the gap between a pair of neurons. I called it getting over myself.”

Here, Ralston elaborates the thought process underlying his paradoxical enjoyment of pushing himself to uncomfortable limits. Through this process, he seeks to transcend the mundane and reach a higher level of awareness and self-mastery. Going beyond concepts of pain or pleasure, Ralston achieves, or at least aspires to achieve, an almost objective, disinterested state.

“He deemed me a friend because of who I am—as a person, not as a climber, a skier, an outdoorsman.”

Ralston ponders the relationship among his various identities. Based on his friend’s comment, he learns to separate his personality and qualities as a friend from his recreational skills. Although he takes pride in the latter, he learns that his most important relationships with others have little to do with technical skills or achievements and much more to do with character.

“Slicing up through icy swirls of crystallized water vapor, I spiral into the vast gulf of space, jettisoning my body in a final act of evolution, metamorphosing into a splash of colored light, an iridescent cluster of hovering photons.”

In this passage, Ralston describes some of the sensations he experiences as his fatigued, dehydrated mind begins to hallucinate. He finds most of his hallucinations pleasant, in contrast with his physical situation. Here, the presence of water vapor suggests his thirst, while the thought of rising above the world and even leaving his body behind must have appealed to his desire for freedom and escape.

“Thinking about my family and friends makes me smile. Memories bring a tidal change of morale, absolving me of my preoccupation with the agony of my crushed wrist under this boulder.”

As Ralston’s entrapment progresses, he goes through cycles of optimism and despair. At key points, like this one, thoughts of loved ones bring Ralston strength and happiness. Thus, although he expounds on the virtues of solitude elsewhere, he also recognizes the joys that come from community and belonging—and the need for balance between community and solitude.

“Hell is indeed a deep, chthonic hole, but hot? No. It is a bitterly dark and unbearably cold place of lonely solitude, an arctic prison without a warden and but one abandoned inmate, forsaken even by the supposed ringleader of the underworld. […] There is only one emotion in hell: unmitigated despair wrapped in abject loneliness.”

Ralston contrasts the traditional conception of hell as a hot, crowded place with his cold, lonely experience trapped in the canyon at night. In so doing, he questions assumptions about what kinds of conditions are the most difficult to endure. He also highlights emotional suffering as a significant component of his experience, alongside the obvious physical pain. Adding to these pains is the discomfort of monotony, which he captures here by characterizing hell as possessing only a closely related pair of emotions.

“Letting go of my desire to dictate the outcome of my entrapment releases a disconnected feeling of lightheartedness that vaguely approximates bliss. […] It’s not apathy or resignation, it’s more like I’ve let go of a spiritual burden.”

Ralston prides himself on action and using every resource within his grasp to make the most of his situation. However, his desire for control also frustrates him when he fails to achieve the desired outcome. Here, after exhausting the options available to him, he acknowledges his lack of control over the situation, which brings him a degree of peace.

“Despite having already come to accept that I will die where I stand before help arrives, now I believe I will live. That belief, that boy, changes everything for me.”

The most impactful of Ralston’s visions comes when he sees not a friend from the past but a moment from a possible future, a future in which he’s a father to a small boy. This moment gives him newfound hope and confidence as well as additional purpose to fight for survival. The implication is that the deepest, most meaningful motivations come from personal relationships.

“At this point, the waiting itself is the worst part of my entrapment. And when I’m done waiting, all there is, is more waiting. I can touch the face of infinity in these doldrums. Nothing gives even a slight hint that the stillness will break.”

Running out of both energy and things to do, the typically proactive Ralston grows impatient. The image of him touching infinity suggests, paradoxically, that he grasps the concept of eternity through experiences limited in time and scope. This in turn suggests that his perception of time has changed, and each moment feels much longer than it is. This portrait of Ralston’s mental agony makes his perseverance even more impressive.

“For the second time in my life, I am being born. […] The value of my family, my friends, and my passions well up a heaving rush of energy that is like the burst I get approaching a hard-earned summit, multiplied by ten thousand.”

Ralston compares his experience at the time of his escape to a rebirth. After losing his freedom and nearly losing his life, he now appreciates both of them much more than before. His insistence that this sensation is thousands of times more powerful than the feeling of reaching a mountain peak adds emphasis to his claims; knowing his love of climbing, one can only imagine the intensity of his emotions at this moment.

“Love passes between us, reaching that spot that can be touched only by the reunion of a son with his mother, a mother with her son. I know we both want it to be a long time before we leave each other’s side again.”

Although Ralston misses and was missed by many friends and relatives, he depicts a special tenderness in his relationship with his mother. In this passage describing their reunion, he attempts—as at the time of his escape—to convey thoughts and feelings deeper than words. In addition, the passage extends the rebirth metaphor he first used in describing his escape: He’s dependent on his mother’s care during the early days of his recovery, just as he was as a child.

“The challenge in the canyon had been severe but straightforward. Once I was out, the challenges became more complex, and at first, I felt unprepared to adapt to my new circumstances.”

As Ralston recovers from his injuries, he finds the challenges he faces more ambiguous than his earlier struggle to survival. For instance, he must balance his attempts at independence with humble reliance on others’ help. These new challenges push him to decide whether and how to change his life as a result of his experiences, while preserving the best aspects of his prior life.

“My accident in and rescue from Blue John canyon were the most beautifully spiritual experiences of my life, and knowing that, were I to travel back in time, I would still say ‘see you later’ to Megan and Kristi and take off into that lower slot by myself. Indeed, it has affirmed my belief that our purpose as spiritual beings is to follow our bliss, seek our passions and live our lives as inspirations to each other.”

Some may read Ralston’s account as a cautionary tale about the dangers of certain behaviors or beliefs. To Ralston, however, the experience reinforced his determination to live fearlessly and passionately. In some ways, his experience mirrors the mountaineering he loves: In each case, through great physical pain or exertion, he arrives at a new spiritual understanding.