Free 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston Page A
Authors: Aron Ralston
the log, and started off into the forest. I could hardly believe it. I yelled after him, “Shoo, bear!” and went over to my purple backpack. Before I picked it up, I threw my broken root after the bear; it crashed into some pine branches over his head, and he scampered off to the west.
Five minutes later, I had my camping stove heating a pot of lake water. I anxiously waited for it to boil, imagining that the bear would return any minute. Two minutes after the water finally boiled, I’d set a personal record for the fastest-ever consumption of a bowl of ramen-noodle soup. I inspected the little rucksack while I packed my food, bowl, and stove into it, and saw four distinct holes from the bear’s teeth. By the time I had hoisted the pack into a safe location, night had fallen, and I cowered back at my tent, the bear winning some revenge via my psychological taxation. With the darkness blinding me, I lay in my sleeping bag, fear provoking paranoia every time the faintest forest sound reached my ears. For seven hours, whenever a leaf fell to the snow, a pine needle dropped into the lake, or a tree creaked in the breeze, my imagination launched like a screaming dragster, accelerating from zero to death-by-bear-mauling in a split second. Splash, a fish jumped in the lake, and instantly my mind responded, “OhmyGodthebearisbackhe’sgonnaeatmeI’mgonna die!” as I held what I was certain would be my last breath. The terror didn’t ease until well after three in the morning, when I finally caught some uneasy shut-eye.
After starting late the next morning, I managed to wade through the hip-deep snow up Garnet Canyon to an elevation around 10,500 feet. The ever present rain clouds obliterated the landscape. I knew I was in the cirque where I had to make a critical route-finding decision, and I couldn’t see a single landmark. It was too late in the day to find my way by trial and error, so I went down in the trench I’d excavated on my ascent. Two hours later, I arrived at the edge of Bradley Lake and tramped in the rain back to my campsite, where I faltered at the sight of the wreck that had been my tent. The rain fly had been ripped off, two of the four poles were snapped, the front access flap was torn completely open, and my sleeping bag was floating in the lake. “What in the hell?” I exclaimed, inspecting the contents of my tent, thoroughly soaked and slimed with mud. “That bear,” I thought. “He came back while I was climbing and ransacked my stuff trying to get to my food.” But the food pack was untouched in its spot in the tree, beyond the bear’s reach. Standing over the wreckage, I could only think that the bear had done all this out of spite. I got the purple food pack down, fished my sleeping bag out of the lake with a branch, and packed away my gear. With everything soaking wet, I couldn’t stay the night, and it would be dark by the time I hiked back to my car—but that’s what I would have to do. With seventy pounds of sodden gear weighing me down, my food pack on my chest like the day before, I started on my way out and immediately noticed the bear tracks overlying my old footprints. Mr. Bear had followed me into my campsite like a hunter on the scent.
At the far side of the little footbridge, where the snow was deeper, I could see how the bear had intersected my post-holes from the north. With my eyes, I retraced his tracks as they went up a thirty-foot-high hill…to where the bear was sitting next to a pine tree, watching me. “Ho-ly shit…” My voice trailed off as the reproachful anger I’d pent up against the bear in the last half hour switched back to the familiar strain of terror. All I could do was keep hiking, hope I didn’t founder in the snow, and pray that the bear would leave me alone. I pulled my drenched map from my pocket and held it with my compass in my left hand: no room for mistakes now.
I left the trail after about fifty feet and stumbled to the hilltop south of
Five minutes later, I had my camping stove heating a pot of lake water. I anxiously waited for it to boil, imagining that the bear would return any minute. Two minutes after the water finally boiled, I’d set a personal record for the fastest-ever consumption of a bowl of ramen-noodle soup. I inspected the little rucksack while I packed my food, bowl, and stove into it, and saw four distinct holes from the bear’s teeth. By the time I had hoisted the pack into a safe location, night had fallen, and I cowered back at my tent, the bear winning some revenge via my psychological taxation. With the darkness blinding me, I lay in my sleeping bag, fear provoking paranoia every time the faintest forest sound reached my ears. For seven hours, whenever a leaf fell to the snow, a pine needle dropped into the lake, or a tree creaked in the breeze, my imagination launched like a screaming dragster, accelerating from zero to death-by-bear-mauling in a split second. Splash, a fish jumped in the lake, and instantly my mind responded, “OhmyGodthebearisbackhe’sgonnaeatmeI’mgonna die!” as I held what I was certain would be my last breath. The terror didn’t ease until well after three in the morning, when I finally caught some uneasy shut-eye.
After starting late the next morning, I managed to wade through the hip-deep snow up Garnet Canyon to an elevation around 10,500 feet. The ever present rain clouds obliterated the landscape. I knew I was in the cirque where I had to make a critical route-finding decision, and I couldn’t see a single landmark. It was too late in the day to find my way by trial and error, so I went down in the trench I’d excavated on my ascent. Two hours later, I arrived at the edge of Bradley Lake and tramped in the rain back to my campsite, where I faltered at the sight of the wreck that had been my tent. The rain fly had been ripped off, two of the four poles were snapped, the front access flap was torn completely open, and my sleeping bag was floating in the lake. “What in the hell?” I exclaimed, inspecting the contents of my tent, thoroughly soaked and slimed with mud. “That bear,” I thought. “He came back while I was climbing and ransacked my stuff trying to get to my food.” But the food pack was untouched in its spot in the tree, beyond the bear’s reach. Standing over the wreckage, I could only think that the bear had done all this out of spite. I got the purple food pack down, fished my sleeping bag out of the lake with a branch, and packed away my gear. With everything soaking wet, I couldn’t stay the night, and it would be dark by the time I hiked back to my car—but that’s what I would have to do. With seventy pounds of sodden gear weighing me down, my food pack on my chest like the day before, I started on my way out and immediately noticed the bear tracks overlying my old footprints. Mr. Bear had followed me into my campsite like a hunter on the scent.
At the far side of the little footbridge, where the snow was deeper, I could see how the bear had intersected my post-holes from the north. With my eyes, I retraced his tracks as they went up a thirty-foot-high hill…to where the bear was sitting next to a pine tree, watching me. “Ho-ly shit…” My voice trailed off as the reproachful anger I’d pent up against the bear in the last half hour switched back to the familiar strain of terror. All I could do was keep hiking, hope I didn’t founder in the snow, and pray that the bear would leave me alone. I pulled my drenched map from my pocket and held it with my compass in my left hand: no room for mistakes now.
I left the trail after about fifty feet and stumbled to the hilltop south of