127 Hours ─ Between a Rock and a Hard Place

On Sunday April 27, 2003, Aron Ralston, a 27-year old outdoorsman, set off for a day's hiking in the Utah canyons. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, and with a single bottle of water, he figured he'd hike for a few hours and then head back to his regular life as a tyro tour guide. After years of climbing every mountain imaginable, this Sunday jaunt was a piece of cake for Aron -- he didn't bother to tell anyone where he was going.40 miles from the nearest paved road, Aron found himself on top of an 800-pound boulder. He slid down and off of the boulder as he had done so many times before -- but as he was about to be clear, the boulder shifted trapping his right hand against the canyon wall. No one knew where he was; he had little water; he wasn't dressed correctly; and the boulder wasn't going anywhere.And so began a terrifying, and life-altering ordeal. Aron Ralston was trapped for five days in the canyon. Hypothermic at night, de-hydrated and hallucinating by day; he took video film of himself, and digital photos each morning. Until May 1, when he finally faced the most terrible decision of his life. That morning Aron Ralston broke the bones in his wrist by snapping them against the boulder, hacked through the skin amputating his right hand and wrist.This was only beginning. He still faced a 60-foot rappell to freedom and a walk of several hours back to his car. He miraculously met a family of Dutch hikers, and with blood-loss almost critical, they heard above them the whir of helicopter blades. Aron was rescued and rushed to hospital just in time.

Aron Ralston, a native of the Midwest, retired from a career as a mechanical engineer at age twenty-six before moving to Aspen, Colorado. Since his accident, he has completed his unprecedented project to climb the fifty-nine Colorado peaks of more than 14,000 feet, alone, in winter. His first book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, was a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into the major motion picture 127 Hours by Danny Boyle. Today, as a father of an infant daughter and four-year-old son, Aron?lives in Boulder, Colorado.?He continues to?travel the world for both adventure and?to share his story.?Follow his journey at AronRalstonSpeaker.com.