On Saturday morning of April 26, 2003, Aron Ralston began a hike into the Utah canyonlands. His journey quickly took a turn for the worse after he entered Blue John Canyon. While manoeuvring over a chockstone boulder, it became dislodged and fell with Aron, trapping his right forearm between the boulder and the wall of the canyon. The rest of the book describes how Aron fights for his survival with a diminishing supply of food and water and his growing realization that freedom lied in amputating his own arm. Readers follow his struggle out of the canyon, his hike that led to rescue, and his road to recovery. Moreover, the book also describes Aron’s personal life, how he became interested in the outdoors, and his previous solo expeditions.
While on these expeditions, Aron survived serious risks, such as drowning, bears, and avalanches. Despite these dangers, the intrinsic benefit achieved from his passions fuelled Aron’s drive to continue. Even though he endured extreme emotional and physical pain, Aron wouldn’t have changed the course of his accident. It is his belief that everything happens for a reason. Instead of having regrets, it is better to learn from an experience. This message is supported by his choice to not change the past, as well as through his multiple adventures. In 1997, he had set a goal to climb solo, in the winter, all fifty-three of Colorado’s mountains that are over fourteen thousand feet. He achieved this feat in 2005. Even after his canyoneering accident, he continued to face risks in order to follow his dream.
A strength of the book was that alternating chapters included personal information and experiences before the accident. These sections described his relationships with friends and family and his passion for the outdoors. This led up to how he arrived in Blue John Canyon. At this point, the interchanging chapters switched to Aron’s friends and family’s beginning search attempts. Following this format, the story clearly outlined the steps both Aron and rescuers took. A map of the canyons and of Aron’s accident site was very helpful in orienting the events of the story. Moreover, several pictures of Aron’s previous adventures and his time in the canyon were included. They provided a strong visual that helped bring the story to life. Although a glossary of certain equipment words was included in the back, it required constant flipping while reading. It would have been more helpful for the defined terms to have been italicized or footnoted on the page. Aron, being a physicist, attempted to move the boulder by creating complex pulley systems. Although he outlined his steps, he did not clearly explain how his actions might be effective in freeing his arm, which would have enhanced comprehension. Overall, this biography was a captivating story because it included personal information about Aron as well as a detailed depiction of his accident.
On April 26th 2003, hiking and mountain climbing enthusiast Aron Ralston set off alone on a hike in a chasm in Utah called Blue John Canyon. He meets two other hikers in the canyon and they discussed going to a party together that night. Aron wanted to see the deeper parts of the canyon however, and when they parted, Aron didn’t realize that they could be the guardian angels sent to try and stop him. He continued on alone, and when he was climbing down a shaft in the canyon, he stepped on a loose boulder causing it to shift and fall down the shaft along with him. He was unhurt, except the boulder had trapped his arm between it and the canyon wall. For the next six days, he has to go through some of the worst hardships one could experience. In the end, when it seems as if all hope was lost and no one was coming to rescue him, he is forced to make a life changing decision.
This book takes you on some thrilling adventures; mainly the story of his entrapment in the canyon, but it also includes stories from his past that have equal amounts of intensity in them. Aron has many close encounters with death on each of these unique stories, the most exhilarating of which dealt with avalanches and scaling dangerous icy mountains. These stories help to keep the reader on the edge, and also keep the reader interested since it changes plot lines a few times.
A critical message in the book is to keep persevering and never give up, even if things look absolutely dismal. Aron proves this in many sections of the book; he tries many different ways of escaping from his entrapment, and when one attempt fails, he just continues to try and use any other means to escape. The same goes for the other stories he discusses in the book. Whenever something turned for the worst, he found a way around it by sticking to the right mindset.
Strengths in this book include the switching from the entrapment in the canyon to stories from past adventures he had every other chapter. This helps to keep the reader interested, because he isn’t talking about the same thing for the whole book. His descriptions of them are very good, because it makes the reader feel almost as if they are there with him. Some things that could be improved with this book were to have a definition in brackets to tell the reader what each climbing tool’s purpose was, to get a better picture of what some of his homemade contraptions could have done to help his situation. I found that this book fit its subject very well; it explains his story in detail and keeps the reader interested with intense and unique stories.
The novel 127 Hours is as incredible story of how Aron Ralston survived 6 days with his right arm trapped by a boulder in Horseshoe Canyon, Utah. Not only does the book detail his amazing adventure, it also tells us about some of his other hiking, skiing and mountaineering experiences from his past.
Throughout the story the thesis is to never give up hope and to keep persevering no matter how many failures you endure. However, there may be some slight bias to this because Aron did in fact survive. If you don’t give up and keep trying, the majority of the time everything will work out fine. Unfortunately there are some situations in which no matter what is done nothing will work.
It is very clear what the authors’ main contentions are, since he was the one trapped. It is a life and death problem for Ralston because: he is stuck in a remote part of Utah, he has low amounts of both water and food, no one knows where he is exactly because he did not leave a detailed trip plan, and not many people travel down this part of the canyon.
The main strength of this book was the way the story unfolded. It held my interest because Aron kept switching between the main adventure and little previous side stories entailing other wilderness trips he has participated in, as well as some general background information about himself. Some examples are: climbing “fourteeners” (mountains over 14, 000 feet tall), getting caught in an avalanche, and his life as an engineer before he discovered his passion for the outdoors. Another strength was the descriptiveness of the novel. I found it very easy to picture what was happening and I could almost feel some of the emotions that Aron was experiencing.
On the other hand, some parts of the book were quite slow and slightly boring. However, this is almost inevitable when telling a story about someone who was trapped in the same spot for six days. A second weakness was that a few of his side stories went on for too long.
Compared to other wilderness survival novels, this is one of the more popular and widely known ones. It is also pretty recent compared to other novels of similar outdoor survival scenarios. Most people have either read the book, watched the movie, or at least know the basic plot. It is a New York Times bestseller and is now a movie.
On Saturday morning of April 26, 2003, Aron Ralston began a hike into the Utah canyonlands. His journey quickly took a turn for the worse after he entered Blue John Canyon. While manoeuvring over a chockstone boulder, it became dislodged and fell with Aron, trapping his right forearm between the boulder and the wall of the canyon. The rest of the book describes how Aron fights for his survival with a diminishing supply of food and water and his growing realization that freedom lied in amputating his own arm. Readers follow his struggle out of the canyon, his hike that led to rescue, and his road to recovery. Moreover, the book also describes Aron’s personal life, how he became interested in the outdoors, and his previous solo expeditions.
ReplyDeleteWhile on these expeditions, Aron survived serious risks, such as drowning, bears, and avalanches. Despite these dangers, the intrinsic benefit achieved from his passions fuelled Aron’s drive to continue. Even though he endured extreme emotional and physical pain, Aron wouldn’t have changed the course of his accident. It is his belief that everything happens for a reason. Instead of having regrets, it is better to learn from an experience. This message is supported by his choice to not change the past, as well as through his multiple adventures. In 1997, he had set a goal to climb solo, in the winter, all fifty-three of Colorado’s mountains that are over fourteen thousand feet. He achieved this feat in 2005. Even after his canyoneering accident, he continued to face risks in order to follow his dream.
A strength of the book was that alternating chapters included personal information and experiences before the accident. These sections described his relationships with friends and family and his passion for the outdoors. This led up to how he arrived in Blue John Canyon. At this point, the interchanging chapters switched to Aron’s friends and family’s beginning search attempts. Following this format, the story clearly outlined the steps both Aron and rescuers took. A map of the canyons and of Aron’s accident site was very helpful in orienting the events of the story. Moreover, several pictures of Aron’s previous adventures and his time in the canyon were included. They provided a strong visual that helped bring the story to life. Although a glossary of certain equipment words was included in the back, it required constant flipping while reading. It would have been more helpful for the defined terms to have been italicized or footnoted on the page. Aron, being a physicist, attempted to move the boulder by creating complex pulley systems. Although he outlined his steps, he did not clearly explain how his actions might be effective in freeing his arm, which would have enhanced comprehension. Overall, this biography was a captivating story because it included personal information about Aron as well as a detailed depiction of his accident.
On April 26th 2003, hiking and mountain climbing enthusiast Aron Ralston set off alone on a hike in a chasm in Utah called Blue John Canyon. He meets two other hikers in the canyon and they discussed going to a party together that night. Aron wanted to see the deeper parts of the canyon however, and when they parted, Aron didn’t realize that they could be the guardian angels sent to try and stop him. He continued on alone, and when he was climbing down a shaft in the canyon, he stepped on a loose boulder causing it to shift and fall down the shaft along with him. He was unhurt, except the boulder had trapped his arm between it and the canyon wall. For the next six days, he has to go through some of the worst hardships one could experience. In the end, when it seems as if all hope was lost and no one was coming to rescue him, he is forced to make a life changing decision.
ReplyDeleteThis book takes you on some thrilling adventures; mainly the story of his entrapment in the canyon, but it also includes stories from his past that have equal amounts of intensity in them. Aron has many close encounters with death on each of these unique stories, the most exhilarating of which dealt with avalanches and scaling dangerous icy mountains. These stories help to keep the reader on the edge, and also keep the reader interested since it changes plot lines a few times.
A critical message in the book is to keep persevering and never give up, even if things look absolutely dismal. Aron proves this in many sections of the book; he tries many different ways of escaping from his entrapment, and when one attempt fails, he just continues to try and use any other means to escape. The same goes for the other stories he discusses in the book. Whenever something turned for the worst, he found a way around it by sticking to the right mindset.
Strengths in this book include the switching from the entrapment in the canyon to stories from past adventures he had every other chapter. This helps to keep the reader interested, because he isn’t talking about the same thing for the whole book. His descriptions of them are very good, because it makes the reader feel almost as if they are there with him. Some things that could be improved with this book were to have a definition in brackets to tell the reader what each climbing tool’s purpose was, to get a better picture of what some of his homemade contraptions could have done to help his situation. I found that this book fit its subject very well; it explains his story in detail and keeps the reader interested with intense and unique stories.
The novel 127 Hours is as incredible story of how Aron Ralston survived 6 days with his right arm trapped by a boulder in Horseshoe Canyon, Utah. Not only does the book detail his amazing adventure, it also tells us about some of his other hiking, skiing and mountaineering experiences from his past.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the story the thesis is to never give up hope and to keep persevering no matter how many failures you endure. However, there may be some slight bias to this because Aron did in fact survive. If you don’t give up and keep trying, the majority of the time everything will work out fine. Unfortunately there are some situations in which no matter what is done nothing will work.
It is very clear what the authors’ main contentions are, since he was the one trapped. It is a life and death problem for Ralston because: he is stuck in a remote part of Utah, he has low amounts of both water and food, no one knows where he is exactly because he did not leave a detailed trip plan, and not many people travel down this part of the canyon.
The main strength of this book was the way the story unfolded. It held my interest because Aron kept switching between the main adventure and little previous side stories entailing other wilderness trips he has participated in, as well as some general background information about himself. Some examples are: climbing “fourteeners” (mountains over 14, 000 feet tall), getting caught in an avalanche, and his life as an engineer before he discovered his passion for the outdoors. Another strength was the descriptiveness of the novel. I found it very easy to picture what was happening and I could almost feel some of the emotions that Aron was experiencing.
On the other hand, some parts of the book were quite slow and slightly boring. However, this is almost inevitable when telling a story about someone who was trapped in the same spot for six days. A second weakness was that a few of his side stories went on for too long.
Compared to other wilderness survival novels, this is one of the more popular and widely known ones. It is also pretty recent compared to other novels of similar outdoor survival scenarios. Most people have either read the book, watched the movie, or at least know the basic plot. It is a New York Times bestseller and is now a movie.