49 pages • 1-hour read
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
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Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Day Four: Out of Food and Water”
On Monday evening, approaching 57 hours without sleep, Ralston struggles to clear his mind of the fragment from an Austin Powers song, along with other images. He reflects, “I can’t sleep, but neither am I fully awake—this mental miasma has put me well on my way toward madness” (188).
Ralston compares the feeling to an earlier experience he had during a 48-hour hike with his endurance trainer, Theresa Daus-Weber several months earlier. Repeatedly falling asleep for seconds at a time while waiting for Theresa to catch up, Ralston came to feel that he was trapped in a time loop, which Theresa attributed to his sleep-deprived mind.
That night, in between wondering whether and when he should drink his urine, Ralston follows the same sleeping-waking pattern of the previous night, though the cycles are shorter since he becomes cold more quickly now. At midnight, he takes a sip of his urine, which he finds disgusting but drinkable, and then plans to save the rest until he runs out of water.
Taking small, hourly sips of water throughout the night, Ralston recognizes the early signs of dehydration, including sunken eyes and an erratic heart rate. During his sip of water at five o’clock in the morning, he becomes frustrated after spilling a few drops.
A while later, after hallucinating a vision of his mother calling out his father’s name, Ralston records another message to his family. He updates them on his situation and then expresses gratitude to his family and congratulations to Sonja for her upcoming graduation and marriage.
After ending his message with the ominous prediction that he’ll die by noon on Wednesday, Ralston makes another frantic attempt to move the boulder with a rope system, with no result. Ralston despairs for a moment before reinstalling the CamelBak insulation as a tourniquet on his arm and hacking at his forearm with the knife. This time, he stabs the knife into his forearm, creating a gash that he explores with the knife; he’s surprised at how little he bleeds. Once again, however, he gives up on the idea of amputation after realizing that he has no way of cutting through bone.
Feeling strangely accomplished, Ralston finds himself drinking the remainder of his water supply. He records an additional message, demonstrating the results of his surgical maneuver. Ripping off part of his shirt, he wraps the wound at 8:30 am as the raven passes overhead.
Ralston records another video of himself, which shows him stretching to reach the morning sunlight. He remarks about his favorite trips with family and friends, realizing that he didn’t neglect relationships as much as he stated in an earlier message. Feeling uplifted after recording the video, he wonders if recalling one’s life as death approaches is a kind of survival instinct designed to boost morale.
Around noon, before urinating, Ralston carefully pours the upper, clearer layer of urine from his CamelBak into his now-empty water bottle. Later, he prays again, this time asking not for rescue but rather patience to wait for death rather than dying by suicide.
Approaching 72 hours of entrapment, Ralston records another message, this one directed to his friend Mark Van Eeckhout; in addition, he gives instructions about his finances. Afterward, he eats his final bite of burrito, accompanied by a few sips of urine. He then records another snippet of video, explaining what he just ate and giving thanks to his grandparents.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Stirrings of a Rescue”
On Thursday afternoon, after parting ways with Ralston, Brad and Leah took a scenic drive, then spent the night in Silverton, Colorado. On Saturday, driving to Goblin Valley, they waited for a call from Ralston but eventually decided he must have either found his way to the party or decided not to come. After getting a flat tire, Brad and Leah missed the party themselves, leaving them with no reason to think Ralston might be missing.
On Saturday afternoon, after separating from Ralston, fellow hikers Kristi and Megan made their way back to the Granary Spring Trailhead, though they were delayed by a misreading of their map. When Ralston failed to appear for their planned rendezvous, they wondered if they missed him and left to refuel, planning to look for him at the party at Goblin Valley. Failing to locate the party, they planned to look for Ralston the next morning at the trailhead where he had planned to meet them for a hike. Arriving at 11:30 am, they saw a truck parked nearby and wondered if Ralston had started the hike alone. Although they didn’t run into him that day, they had no reason to think that anything was wrong, so they returned home to Moab on Sunday afternoon.
On Monday evening, Ralston’s residence in Aspen hosted a party with about 50 guests to mark one roommate’s departure and the arrival of another. Leona Sondie, the departing roommate who also happened to be Ralston’s coworker at Ute Mountaineer, was surprised but not alarmed when he failed to appear, as were Brad and Leah, among others.
When Ralston failed to show up for work on Tuesday morning, his manager, Brion After, called Leona, who verified that he wasn’t at home. Brion decided to wait 24 hours to report Ralston’s absence to the police. Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening, two of Ralston’s roommates, Brian Payne and Joe Wheadon, called the police of their own accord to report Ralston missing.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Day Five: Trance Sanctuary”
As the temperature falls on Tuesday night, Ralston puts his shorts back on, which he removed as potential bandaging during his amputation attempt. His hallucinations intensify: He sees faces in the walls of the canyon and imagines that he’s gliding forward and upward; in addition, he experiences out-of-body sensations but returns to his body during intense shivers. Periodically, he pours the top layer of his urine into his water bottle, leaving sediment behind.
Ralston’s thought process becomes scattered and incomplete, and his sense of time distorts: Two minutes feel like 10. A series of memories centering on favorite drinks plays out in Ralston’s mind, but none of the drinks he imagines brings any satisfaction.
Around three o’clock in the morning, Ralston applies lip balm; he considers eating some and is pleased to note that his mouth still produces saliva, but he decides not to swallow the resulting goo.
After reviewing some of his favorite trips around the world with family and friends, Ralston hallucinates a robed figure, who invites him into a cozy, friend-filled room through a door in the canyon wall; a series of severe shivers restores Ralston to his senses. Later, he hallucinates a visit from Jon Heinrich, his best friend from high school, whose presence comforts Ralston until another bout of shivers jolts him back to the present. Feeling renewed in spirit, if not body, he says aloud, “I’ve got a few more days left in me” (238). However, he compares his present experience in the canyon to a cold, lonely version of hell.
As the next day begins, Ralston takes a few more pictures and records another brief message, highlighting some borrowed items that need to be returned and mentioning some of his favorite beverages. Feeling spurred to action, he attempts to chip the boulder by hitting it with another rock. This proves more effective than using his knife, but he finds this method unsustainable because it hurts his hand.
At two o’clock that afternoon, Ralston records what he expects will be his final message, including requests for his funeral and specifications for his cremated remains to be scattered at favorite locations.
Due to cloud cover, the afternoon is colder than usual. By nighttime, Ralston feels weaker than ever before. He scratches his first name, followed by “OCT 75 – APR 03” into the rock wall before falling into another trance. This time, he sees a vision of a young boy, his child, in his future home. From that moment, Ralston begins to believe that he’ll survive.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Firestorm”
When Ralston fails to show up for work on Wednesday morning, Brion calls Ralston’s mother, Donna Ralston. Devastated, she commits him to call the police. She calls her friend Michelle, who visits and comforts her. On a hunch, the two of them attempt to reset Ralston’s email to see if it contains any clues about his whereabouts, but they struggle to answer his security questions accurately.
After calling the police, Brion enlists Elliott, Ralston’s new roommate, to help search for information. While Elliott searches through Ralston’s belongings for clues, Brion emails Ralston’s climbing teammates. He checks back in with Donna, who gives him Ralston’s vehicle information, though there’s a mistake in the license plate number, which Ralston mistakenly misreported to her on a prior occasion. Finally gaining access to Ralston’s email, Donna reads through his recent emails, while Brion sends out emails to Ralston’s contacts requesting relevant information. In addition, Donna notifies the immediate family of Ralston’s absence; Ralston’s father, Larry, offers to return home from a work trip immediately, but Donna encourages him to finish the trip and promises to inform her church group, which sends a friend to comfort and assist her. Meanwhile, she calls multiple authorities in Utah to request their aid in the search.
From Ralston’s friends and teammates, the searchers learn of his original plans to climb Mount of the Holy Cross as well as a contradictory verbal statement that he was headed to Utah. Additionally, they obtain a list of the Utah canyons that Ralston had expressed interest in visiting. Steve Patchett, Ralston’s colleague on a search-and-rescue squad, calls relevant counties in Utah, requesting that they search trailheads for Ralston’s vehicle. In Boulder, following a meditation session, Leona sees an image of Ralston, who appears frightened and injured, and wishes she could help.
Unable to sleep, Donna tracks down Ralston’s correct license plate number in the early hours of the morning. She then waits for morning, praying for him to hold on.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
In these chapters, Ralston continues to probe the theme of The Will to Survive. Although Ralston thinks he has reached his own limit and even inscribes his expected death date into the canyon wall, he continually surprises himself with his endurance. Despite his mounting sleep deprivation, dehydration, and hunger—as well as the aftereffects of his injuries—he does what it takes to keep himself alive, whether by drinking his own urine or shivering through the night. The implication is that not even Ralston knows his own limits; the human will to survive is deeper and more instinctive than he consciously comprehends.
Meanwhile, stripped of other considerations and motives, Ralston continues to find solace and comfort in his personal relationships, showing his progress in relation to the theme of Differentiating the Sources of Self-Esteem. On this front, his hallucinations—which often center on people he knows—aid his heartfelt confessions to the camcorder. Most impactful of all is his vision of a young boy, whom he takes to be his yet-to-be-born son, showing that as valuable as memories of happy relationships are, it’s important to live in the present with an eye toward the future. Ralston’s hope and expectation of starting a family implicitly takes precedence over his continued development of his outdoor skills; a hypothetical vision of himself ascending the last of Colorado’s fourteeners solo during the winter, appealing as it may be, would be unlikely to have the same effect on him.
Structurally, the flashback narratives of earlier sections give way to a rescue narrative that follows the coordinated effort to locate Ralston. The eager, helpful responses of his friends and family, as well as government officials, demonstrate the truth of earlier statements that character is more important than behavior. Although the two are related, the officials who merely do their duty are much less helpful than those who, because of their caring nature, take extra steps to help locate Ralston. The pacing and placement of these chapters optimize their suspense. Starting with a few dead ends from a rescue perspective, such as Megan and Kristi as well as Brad and Leah, builds initial suspense about when and how the first breakthroughs in the rescue effort will come. Cutting back and forth between the canyon and the rescue efforts creates a sense that both events are happening simultaneously, as indeed they were, and creates the sense of a race against time.
These chapters feature the book’s most prominent and intense spiritual—and even supernatural—imagery, to which Ralston offers a mixed response: While he voices the possibility that the hallucinations he experiences, particularly the pleasant ones, are simply a survival mechanism designed to keep him alive a little longer, he attaches real significance to some of his visions and credits them with buoying his morale, which makes it possible for him to finally escape in subsequent chapters. Both Ralston and his mother pray in this chapter, and she turns to her church group for support. Leona, meanwhile, sees a vision of Ralston in pain. Whether one attaches any supernatural significance to these incidents (and Ralston leaves the door open to the possibility without committing either way), they together demonstrate how spirituality can be a natural refuge for people in distress.
Additionally, these chapters touch on the theme of Security Versus Risk-Taking, showing how the consequences of Ralston’s risky actions ripple outward to impact others. Unusually for Ralston, he left without giving anyone a detailed itinerary, partly because he only had a vague idea what he wanted to do in Utah. This constitutes unnecessary risk on his part. Once Ralston goes missing, others’ difficulty in locating him due to their limited information compounds and extends the impact of his absence. Donna, in particular, suffers from stress and anxiety once she learns that her son is missing. This illustrates an important principle in risk analysis: The person choosing whether to take a risk isn’t necessarily the only one who will be affected by the outcome.
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