Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place is a book, published in 2004, that recounts the life of Aron Ralston as it leads up to his entrapment in Blue John Canyon in the Utah desert and how he was forced to amputate his lower right arm with a low-quality multitool (a dull knife) in order to free himself after his arm became trapped by a boulder. Written by Aron himself, he tells stories of his first outdoors activities brought on by his move to Colorado from Indiana as a boy, to his becoming an obsessive outdoorsman, to him leaving his engineering career to be outdoors as much as possible. The book goes back and forth, in alternating chapters, between his past experiences and his entrapment in the slot canyon. Included in the Atria hardcover edition are pictures of his terrible days in the canyon, various photos from the past excursions he speaks of in the book, a glossary of mountaineering jargon, and maps of Blue John Canyon and the proximity of the canyon in central eastern Utah. This is his first book.