127 HOURS ARON RALSTON

CHAPTER 1:
On April the 26th, 2003 Aron is biking and hiking in Canyonlands National Park
in south east Utah, USA.
The Plan:

First day: Aron and Brad are climbing and skiing on Mountains Soplis.
Second day: Aron is biking the Slick Rocky Trail alone.
Third Day: he is hiking through Blue John (along this lies the Big Drop Rappel*)
and Horseshoe Canyons (here you find the Great Gallery *) after biking to the
trail. He is leaving his bike at the end of the trail, then hiking back to the
carpark, after that he is driving over in the truck and collecting the bike after.
Finally, he is driving to Gobling Valley, his friends are having a party there.
Fourth day: Aron is hiking the most popular trail in southern Utah Little White
Horse.
Fifth day: He is biking along the White Rim Trail in 18 hours. That evening he
needs to be back in Aspen, Colorado because he is having a goodbye party for
Leona, his roommate and colleague. Leona is going to live to another city to
work.

Aron arrives at the Horseshoe Canyon carpark, leaves his truck and starts
cycling.
After 13km he locks his bike to a tree and starts walking.
He is near the Great Gallery.
He realizes he has forgotten to leave a message telling anyone where he was
going. Only Leona knew he was going to be somewhere in Utah.
Up at the trail he hears voices. Two other hikers, Megan and Kristi, appear. They
decide to walk along together.
They separate at the end of the west canyon and he continues alone to the Big
Drop Rappel.
They agreed on going together to the party on Gobling Valley. However, Aron
follows his plan.

*Big Drop Rappel:

The canyon drops 18 meters, the walls are very narrow and the trail
goes up and down, sharply. There are boulders stuck between the
canyons walls.

*The Horseshoe Canyon:

Here it lies the Great Gallery, and it is famous for the huge rock paintings
which cover the walls.

CHAPTER 2:

 Aron travels alone now and he arrives near the Big Drop Rappel. He meets the
most difficult part of the trail.
The canyon walls are narrower, the trails rise and fall and is full of sharp rocks.
He comes across the boulders; he needs to be careful.
As he starts to stand on one boulder something moves, his weight pushes on
one side of it and makes a strange sound.
He lets go of the boulder and drop towards the ground, when he looks
up he sees the boulder crashing towards his head.
The boulder hits his right hand and trap his hand against the right side
of the canyon.
A terrible pain travels up his arm, he pushes against the boulder with his knees
at the same time but nothing happens.
He is stuck and there is no way out.

CHAPTER 3:
He keeps on listening the voices in his head. One tells him to be sensible. The
other one just says: Stupid Aron!
He drinks more water than he should. He need to save water.
After 45 minutes he feels calmer. He thinks about Kristi and Megan may be
looking for him.
He also comes up with the conclusion that neither his friends nor his family
would be able to find him, he never said where he was going to be at.
He makes up 3 plans: chipping the boulder, lifting the boulder or amputate his
arm.
He starts chipping at the rock for 3 hours, he stops to drink water; he just sips.

CHAPTER 4:
Megan and Kristi couldnt meet Aron. They think they have missed him. They
left their email address in the window truck of Arons.
He stops chipping at the night, he feels tired.
He has decided to drink water every 90 minutes.
As he feels cold he uses his climbing bag as a jacket.
He also takes his rope/harness and builds a seat; he feels more comfortable.
He realizes, in the morning, the chipping plan is not working.

CHAPTER 5:
He decides to try plan 2. He ties his rope to a rock above his head and around
the boulder, he pulls but nothing happens.
He starts panicking, but he promises himself he will remain calm.
He males up his mind, he realizes he will have to amputate his arm.
He needs his knife and a tourniquet for blood.
He starts to realize his guilt on this.
After 30 hours he records a message for family and friends with his camcorder.
He feels sorry.

CHAPTER 6:
He starts to feel really thirsty. He has only a quarter of water left.
He urinates into the Camelbak.
57 hours and he feels colder now.
Some mosquitoes and a raven make him think there must be water quite close,
probably at the Big Drop Rappel.
His first voice is back: You will never see water again.

CHAPTER 7:
Aspen:

 Leonas party finishes at 2 oclock but there is no sing of Aron.

Brion, Arons boss, calls Leona afraid of something may have happened to Aron.
He is never late for work.
Leona calls back in the afternoon but Aron hasnt arrived yet.
Brion and Leona agree to wait until nine in the morning, if he is not back by
then, he will call Arons parents.
Arons housemates decide not to wait and at 6pm that day call the police. But in
order to rescue someone he has to be reported missing at least for 48hrs.
Canyon:
It is his third night there and he has decided to sip his first sip if urine. He is
waiting until he runs out of water.
Two hours later he need to drink again but the bottle falls onto his shorts. He
loses half of the water left.
Tuesday comes and he decided to film again. He assumes that people might be
looking for him by now. But according to his plan he may be found by Thursday,
however he feels hopeless at surviving one more day.

CHAPTER 8:
The raven becomes a sign of hope, freedom.
He keeps on trying plan number 2, but even though he lifts, pushes, jumps and
shouts the boulder doesnt move.
Suddenly he goes with plan number 3: he puts a tourniquet around his arm and
tightens it. Then he picks the multi-tool, opens the shorter knife and pushes
hard into his arm. This time, the knife goes all the way in.
After pulling out the knife he looks at the deep hole he has made in his right
arm. He feels no pain at all.
He drinks the rest of the water.
71 hours trapped - the raven appears; he thinks up about stuff he did in the
past.
He urinates again in the Camelbak, he puts the clearer part into his bottle, he
throws the rest away.
After eating his last burrito, he drinks a mouthful of urine. It doesnt taste so
bad.
Aspen:
On Wednesday morning, Brian decides to call Arons mother but he has no idea
where he can be.
Her mother thinks checking his computer to see if he has sent an email with his
whereabouts. He sent this information to Brion.
She calls the police, Mr. Adam Crider, the head officer, asks for the license-plate
number. She gives a wrong number.
Brion makes Elliot, another friend of Aron, to continue searching, since he is
traveling to Australia. Arons mother calls Elliot to give the correct number of
the license.
After a short recue-operation they cant find Aron.
The main officer in Utah police, Kyle Ekker checked the number with the national
license office. There is no vehicle on record. The number is wrong again.

 His mother receives bad news and she remembers Aron was living in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he bought the truck. She calls the place and
figures out the real license-plate number of the truck.
The have to wait till morning to start the operation.
Canyon:
Aron starts having visions.
He is not afraid anymore, he feels caring people are taking care of him.
He thinks about all the people he hasnt been paying attention to. He wants to
change his life after being rescued.
The sound of the ravens wings makes him feel stronger.

CHAPTER 9:
After 97 hours he thinks about finding a hard rock and use it to break the
boulder. There is one in a hole in the canyon wall above him.
He hits the rock against the boulder but he has to stop soon because his left
arm is in pain.
Today is the coldest day so far. After hitting the boulder for 3 hours he has to
stop again. His arm is in too much pain.
He realizes he wont survive one more night.
He writes the dates of his life with the knife on the canyon wall.
That midnight he has another vision. His dreams about his future son, that boy
gives him hope again. He wants to survive.

Utah City:
Kyle Ekker calls Glen Sherill, the head officer of Robbers Roost. Glen answers
that he may have seen a Toyota truck like Arons.
Glen asks his men to start checking the zone.
20 minutes later Glen calls Kyle saying they have found the truck in the
Horseshoe Canyon carpark.
The rescue team and the police start the search.

CHAPTER 10:
Thursday, May the 1st. 120 hours without sleep. Two days without water.
Aron is not seeing the raven anymore, he is desperate and knows he will record
one last message,
This video is dedicated to his family and Sonja; he says he loves them.
He cries but no tears come out.
He realizes his right hand is dead, he doesnt feel anything.
He pushes the knife through the skin of his thumb. There is a sound as some
gas escapes, followed by a bad smell.
His arm is poisoned. He doesnt want to keep having his arm, the poison may kill
him.
His arm is in a strange position so he realizes he can break his arm by
using his own weight. He throws the whole weight of his body below
the boulder. There are two noises, he has broken both bones in his
arm.

 He falls back screaming in his head: You are free.

Blood is coming out of his arm, he tightens the tourniquet, ties his
climbing bag. He takes two pictures of the trapped arm. He cant walk
straight. He puts everything into his bag, walks through the canyon
walls, he stands at the edge, ties his rope to the metal rings in the
rock for climbers, and rappels down.
There is a pool of brown water, he fills his bottle up and the Camelbak after
drinking litres of water.
The temperature is rising, he has a long way back ahead, his Camelbak has a
hole on it, he loses water.
He arrives at the Great Gallery he fills up his bottle with more water. He is losing
too much blood. He has already walked 10 km.
3 more kilometers and he meets his truck. He feels weaker.
He meets a hill; he knows he wont be able to climb it.
About seventy meters ahead of me are a family of 3 people a man, a woman
and a young boy. They are walking away of him.
He starts screaming: Help! I need help!
The family reaches him and he tells his story.
The man gives him water but Aron falls to the ground.

CHAPTER 11:

A helicopter arrives and takes him to the hospital.

He tells his story again to the pilot.
Already at the hospital he tells his story for the third time to a Park Ranger.
He feels shocked by the situation at the hospital: needles, pain, etc.
After that 127 hours have passed, he realizes it and falls asleep.

Deep Analysis

Setting in time: from April the 26th to May 1st, 2003

Setting in place: Horseshoe Canyon, formerly known as Barrier Canyon, is in
a remote area west of the Green River and north of the Canyonlands National
Park Maze District in Utah, USA.
Characters:
Main: Aron Ralston
Protagonist: Aron Ralston
Antagonist: Boulder
Secondary: Megan and Kristi, Brion, Arons mother, Leona.
Tertiary: Glen Sherill, the family, Sonja, Adam Crider, Kyle Ekker,
Elliot.

MAIN CHARACTERS DESCRIPTION:

Aron Ralston

EMOTIONAL

PHYSICAL

BEFORE THE
ACCIDENT

He is brave and
risky.
He is a daredevil.
He is passionate
about risking his
life.
He is stubborn
and likes to
accomplish what
he proposes.
He is a very lonely
person, but
friendly too.

He is tall, has
black hair, he is
thin and fit.
He is sporty.
Hes fresh and
ready to start the
odyssey.
He has strong
arms and legs.
He wears a
special
equipment for
hikers.

General
information
He is 28 years
old
He lives in
Aspen,
Colorado.
He works in
Ute
Mountaineer.
He is single,
his girlfriend is
called Sonja.
He lives in a
flat with 3
more friends.
He is a hiker,
biker and
climber.
He likes
listening to

music while he
is on an
adventure.

AFTER THE
ACCIDENT

He has two voices

in his head.
Sometimes he
feels hope
sometimes he is
hopeless.
He starts having
visions.
He is really afraid
though he
remains strong
most of the time.
He wants to
survive and
changes his life.
He regrets doing
the ways he did
his adventure.
He tries to stay
calm to have a
routine and put up
with the situation
he is living.
He records videos
to tell his story
and to say
goodbye to his
family and friends.
He feels
motivated by a
raven since it
represents
freedom and
hope.
He pushes himself
up to the limit.

He is tired of
planning his
scape.
He is thirsty.
He records videos
to tell his story
and to say
goodbye to his
family and
friends.
He feels cold at
nights.
He is in pain, and
as the hours
pass, it gets
worse.
He has his body
tired and part of
his right arm
dies.
He has no
strength by the
end of the story.

Antagonist: The Boulder

The Boulder seems to be the only antagonist in

the story. This is the opposing force to the
protagonist since it sets up conflicts, obstacles, or
challenges for the protagonist.
The boulder which gave him a warning when he
heard the strange sounds. He already knew that
that boulder was going to be a problem, but he
went forwards anyway.
It represents the only opposition to Aron to fulfill
his objective, getting to the Big Drop Rappel. The
boulder traps him to teach him some lessons that
he will be discovering along the story.

Climax: It happens when Aron realizes that his arm is poisoned and he doesnt
want to keep having his arm, the poison may kill him. His arm is in a strange
position so he understands he can break his arm by using his own weight.
Consequently, he throws the whole weight of his body below the boulder. Aron
hears the two noises of the both broken bones in his arm. He falls back
screaming in his head: You are free.

Resolution: The story has a resolute ending since the reader understands what
is the resolution of it. The real conflict of Aron, surviving, seems accomplished
and we can realize that when he arrives to the hospital and retells his story he
falls asleep in a deeply way. This means he finally can rest and stops fighting
against life and death. He has won the battle of facing the obstacle that the
boulder represents.

Conflict: we may find two main conflicts in the story. The main conflict is not
only that Aron cant free himself from the trapping boulder but also that he has
to survive everyday by remaining calm, taking care his water and food, and of
course developing his plans without giving up.
Also, a secondary conflict is the fact that nobody knows where Aron is, so the
recue-operation is only but a problem. Aron cant be saved and the people
worried about him dont know where they should look for him.
At the end of the story both conflicts see themselves solved since he frees
himself and a helicopter takes him to the hospital.

Symbols:
o

Boulder: it represents all the things that made him be slave of himself.
He didnt pay attention to anyone, he was very lonely. He was only
focused on his world. When he is isolated from the rest of the world, he
realizes that he was trapped in his own things and he understood he
needed other people to survive.

Raven: it represents freedom. It was a sign of hope, the raven could

move freely around the sky, and Aron wanted to release himself and be
free again.
Water: represents life. He knew that everything depended on how much
water he had left. He had to take care water as his own life or even more.
Water represent the only source of energy and salvation. If he hadnt
taken care of water he wouldnt have been able to survive.
His future son: it also represents energy, and another sign of hope. The
boy represents his future. He need to survive and be strong to share his
time with his future son. He is going to be a father so he shouldnt die
there trapped in the canyon. The boy is his future life after freeing
himself from the boulder.

Rising Events:

Falling Events: