Chapter 7 05／Day 2: Choices That Don't Work

desert morning Woke up early in the morning and you sang loudly Invigorate with the breath of life rising from the shining stone Feel the history of the stone, caressing your skin smoothly Smell the scent of flowers and dance in the wind dance in the wind Thin Cheese Incident Orchestra ① <Desert Morning> ① Cheese Incident Orchestra: String Chese Incident is an American rock band full of avant-garde experimental style. * In the morning, when the temperature gradually warmed up, I no longer had to use my knife to knock on rocks pointlessly, just to keep warm.Because my hands would scream in pain just by changing the position a little, so I temporarily put down the digging action.Although I hadn't slept all night, I felt more energy from the light coming in from the canyon, just as much as when I was walking at night and seeing the morning light.Today, however, there is no sign of an end in sight.My wrestling with rocks is endless.I'll be stuck here until I fix this problem.

From the desert stories I've read, I know that lack of water can kill a person with little changes in physiology, but basically it's because the organs can't deliver enough nutrients to those damaged places.Once a person's kidneys fail and toxins attack the body, some people will die; some people will not die until the heart fails.When operating in hot environments, the lack of water can lead to overheating, which turns into a boiled head.But no matter what kind of death is faced, cramps and severe cramps are the most likely warning signs.i started to speculate What does kidney failure feel like?Probably not good.Worse than stomach cramps when you eat too much, I bet.Kidney failure can be a painful death.The hypothermia may be better. If he passed away soon, at least his heart would be numb and he would not feel pain when he died.

The temperature did not drop very low last night, about thirteen degrees Celsius. It is not cold enough to cause severe hypothermia. Maybe it is faster to die if it is washed away by the sudden flood?The body dies quietly from numbness caused by the cold?Or a bout of heart failure before dying?I have no idea. But I'm ready to act, not die.Time to get a better anchor point that I can use for the lifting system and try to move this rock out of the way.If I could pull the front of it up, maybe 0.3 meters, I could get my hands out, although it would take a lot of time to move such a large rock.Perhaps I could push the rock back a bit to lessen the pressure, creating a five-centimeter gap but enough to get me out of the trap.If the hand could get out of trouble, I would have regarded it as nothing.What if the blood flowed back after the hand was freed?Will it bring the rot back into the veins and damage my heart?Medically speaking, I don't know what the potential threat is, but once I can move my arm, it seems reasonable to assume that the toxin will spread.I accept the risk, and it's the only risk I want to face.

My first move in trying to find the second anchor point, the carabiner behind my harness, undid the yellow neon webbing and untied the rope from the storage loop.I untied the knots that tied it at both ends and tied the seven-meter rope back and forth to the top of the stone, trying to stack it neatly and distinguish it from the safety harness rope.Looking up the canyon from where I'm stuck, I'm guessing if there's any structure or edge on top of the rock that I could use?I didn't pay much attention to it when I was there yesterday afternoon.However, at a height of about 1.8 meters above my head, a shallow corner protruded from the middle of the rock.If there is something solid in the recess behind the corner, the sling line can go up and hang on the sides of the corner.

I tried throwing the sling towards the bottom of the corner, but the rope was too light for me to throw it accurately into the air.When I toss the sling up high, it comes off the side of the corner, like it has a spring in it, and it bounces off the rocks.I struggled with a solution and decided to attach one end of the unused climbing rope to a sling, try throwing the rope over the corner, and use the heavier end to pull the sling down.The next dozen or so attempts involved tedious repetitions of resetting the ropes and slings, returning the body to the original position to do it all over again, and each failed.I was able to throw the rope over the corner, but the knots all slipped out of the top.The slings had fallen so far in front of the corner that they couldn't be hooked up securely.Again and again, the sling brushed past and landed on the sand.

I found a crack just behind the corner to the right.Maybe I could slip a sling into that slit?Behind the corner there will be a better angle to slide the rope steadily.The next time I cast and pull, I wait until the knot hits the corner, then bite the end of the rope between my teeth and give the sling a gentle pull.This time I finally managed to get it into the slit.aha!I pulled the knot over the edge of the rock.This time it was different, with the sling hanging behind the salmon-coloured corner, and slowly reeling in the end, I knew I had found a fixed point where I could put my weight. I undid the knot connecting the rope to the sling, took off a metal rappel ②, and tied several single knots on the sling until it made a loop with the metal rappel underneath.I pulled on the loop with my left hand to tighten the knot a bit and test the rock formation near the dike.I pulled with my full body weight again and again, and the sling didn't move, proving that everything was in place.

②Descent ring: rappelling ring/rap ring, a forged aluminum split ring, connects the climbing rope and the fixed point when descending, and also makes it easier for the climber to pull the climbing rope from the fixed point after completing the descent. Glancing at his watch, it was already past eleven o'clock on Sunday morning.It took me two hours to reinstall the anchors, but at least it's been successful so far.I only took a small sip of water and it greatly increased my satisfaction.My self-discipline is in control and I'm satisfied with my achievement of setting a fixed point in this difficult environment and using only one hand near this unlikely terrain.

(Great job Alan. Now is the time to move the rock, don't stop now.) I cut off one end of the climbing rope by nine meters, used a shorter section to circle the stone, and tied a knot.Next I put the other rope through the rappel ring and of course I can only reach the rappel ring with my left hand.I didn't hold out any hope that this would move the stone, but I pulled hard on the rope, and of course it didn't move. (That's okay, at least the anchors are secure.) I need to make good use of the advantages of the machine to design a pulley system.With just a single knot in the rope, I couldn't lift the stone with all my strength on the rope.The friction on the rings completely makes this setup a disadvantage on the machine.Unfortunately, I don't have any pulleys with me either, I recall having hooks and loops and much less friction.I tried to remove the retaining shackles that I used to hang the sling from, and kept tugging at the rope until the tangled rope fell out of the slit.

Time passed before I knew it, I was absorbed in the rope, recalled the training in the search and rescue team and devised a plan in my mind, this project is a haulage system used to evacuate immobile patients from vertical rock faces evolved.The Albuquerque Rescue Team taught me two standard systems and I chose something in between, deciding on a Z-block system with a re-directed pull line.Due to space and equipment constraints, I modified the general standard system, and I added a Prussian rope loop ③ pulled by a rope on the shackle to connect the two ends of the rope.With the two changes in direction, in theory, the force on my drag point is three times more, and the advantage ratio of labor saving is three to one.Because of my improvisation, the friction of the system factored in, and I was still 1.5 to 1 better than my first attempt.

③Prussian chain link: Prusik Ioop, a kind of rope ring for knotting Prussian knots, used when climbing trees or setting rigging.A Prussian knot is a sliding knot that, when tied, can be used for ascending or operating a pulley block.When loosening, the knot can be slid up and tightened from below to lock the knot. But the system is still too weak.Stone remained unmoved.On one end of the drag line I tied a set of bark knots that could be slipped onto the double single knots to make anklets.Standing on the loops gave me a 0.6m taller in the canyon, and although my hands were stuck in the rocks making my position awkward, I was still able to put most of my weight on the drag line.

When I grab the rope with one hand, I'm probably putting three or four times as much force on it.The pull line is tight, even through the shackle knot, and my system works perfectly, as intended when it was designed.However, I'm using a climbing rope, which means it will stretch and absorb force on the descent, which means I lose a lot of power when working on the line. After several hours of heavy work, I even wove a few centimeters of sling on the drop ring by tying another knot in the middle, and repeated several attempts to set up fixed points without success. In short, I never shook the boulder.I use what I have on hand to get the most out of it, can recreate a 5 to 1 system I have enough carabiners and slings but I need 0.3m of space between the anchor point and the rock to install Knots required for larger systems.The frustration of all wasted effort combined with the lack of progress made me decide to stop and take a break.Looking at my watch, it's already one o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm sweating profusely and out of breath. Suddenly, I heard a voice echoing in the canyon in the distance.Cursing in excitement and surprise in my heart, my dry throat was suddenly out of breath. (Is it possible? It's daytime and a climbing group will come here during the day and turn back to the West Fork or the entrance of Horseshoe Canyon? It's not impossible. After all, I was here yesterday afternoon.) To actually extrapolate, I'm terrified that it's hallucinations and that the voices are coming from inside my head.Hold your breath, I'll listen again. Yes, the sound is unreal, a little distant but also a little familiar: the sound of shoes rubbing against gravel.It is possible that a group of canyoneers are descending the first cliff. Help! My roar sounded like a cat meowing, and it quickly disappeared into the canyon, forcing myself to hold my breath, and I listened carefully.But no response at all. Help! The urgent, trembling roar unnerved me.I held my breath again.After yelling, the echo gradually weakened, and there was no response, I could only hear myself bang bang!heartbeat.Once the critical moment passed, my hopes evaporated, and I knew that there was no one in this canyon. My fighting spirit collapsed after a sharp pain, as helpless as the girl broke my heart for the first time.Then I heard the noise again.This time I understood better, and I chose to wait and listen quietly.What I thought was the approach of a canyoneer was actually the chattering of a kangaroo whose nest was in a cairn next to the rocks behind my head.I turned my head and saw it waving its tail as it traversed a bunch of branches before disappearing into the cave. At this moment, I ask myself to call for help only once a day.Hearing your own trembling voice can make you panic even more, and you can't keep your head down if you bark too much.Intellectually, I know that no one is going to come to this canyon now, and maybe next weekend, when search and rescue teams will be searching for my body in this wilderness.After careful consideration, my voice can only be heard as far as 45 meters away, but the closest person is at least 8 to 11 kilometers away, so why call myself out of my mind. Around two o'clock, I reconsider my situation and options.Waiting, digging, lifting, etc. all ended in failure.For the first time, I seriously thought about amputating my arm, the whole procedure and the possible consequences.I laid out all my belongings in front of me and thought through the possible uses of each item during the operation. My concerns include whether the existing cutting tools and tourniquets to prevent excessive bleeding will be useful?My utility knife has two blades: the 3.5cm blade is sharper than the 7.5cm blade.It might be possible to use the longer blade for cutting stones and keep the shorter blade for surgery. But my gut tells me that even with a sharper blade I won't be able to saw through the bone.I've seen documentaries of Civil War doctors hacking off patients' hands and legs with hacksaws in field hospitals, but I don't even have a decent saw.I used to speculate on how to cut as few arms as possible.I initially only considered cutting the bones of the forearm, not the cartilage of the elbow joint.I've never thought of the latter possibility, maybe I'm trying to rule out the most likely ones first. I'm reminded of a video of drug addicts tying their arms with a surgical tube while injecting heroin.This clear picture made me think that I could use the straw on the water bag as a tourniquet.So, I cut off the water bag straw and tried to tie a simple knot on the upper edge of the forearm, just below the elbow.I knew I had to tie the tube very tight, even though it would permanently damage part of my arm; and I also wanted to tie the tube as close to where I cut it as possible.But the knot on the tube was loose, and even after I redid it three times, I still couldn't tie it: the plastic was too stiff to make a knot that fit snugly next to the back of the hand.I was looking for a twig to insert into the tourniquet, but there were no twigs thick enough to use nearby.It took some serious force to tie the pipe tight, but it was strong enough to snap any tree branches in my vicinity. (For this idea, it made me toss even more.) I removed a purple sling from the loop and tied it around my forearm.It took five minutes to tie a double knot, only to find that it was too loose to stop the blood flow.Sure enough, still need a stick or, can you use a hook and loop to lock the straps?I clamp the loop with the shackle gate and rotate it twice.The sling was tied tightly around the forearm, and the skin near the wrist was the color of a fish maw.I made a tourniquet that worked well, and there was a subtle sense of satisfaction in watching a medical procedure I devised work effectively in a difficult environment. (Well done, Alan.) What else do I need?Basic first aid guidelines recommend applying direct pressure to the wound, so I needed something to wrap the end of my arm to slow the flow of blood from the tourniquet.The crotch pad for my bike shorts is a great absorbent pad, and a little bit of 2m webbing cut from the anchor point is enough to secure the shorts to the bottom of the arms.Then, put my stump in the mini backpack, perfect. Despite my optimism, a hint of worry flashed through my mind.Although my mind has been thinking in the direction of amputation, it is only theoretically possible.I thought if I amputate my arm, how would I stop the blood loss? , and if I amputate my arm, how do I bandage and hang my stump?Because my knife is not sharp enough, everything I plan is just a wild idea.Amputation will not be a pragmatic option until I figure out how to cut the bone!If I can solve this riddle, I wonder if I'm brave enough?Can my state of mind take it?I decided to test myself and held the short blade of the utility knife against my skin.The tip of the knife pointed at the place where the muscle was dented a few centimeters up the compressed wrist.The sight makes me flinch. (What the hell are you doing, Ellen? Get the knife off your wrist! What are you going to do, kill yourself? I don't care how good your tourniquet is, too many blood vessels in your arm, you can't Block. Your blood will run out. You cut your wrist like you stab your guts. If you try to cut a bone, it's like going down to the bottom, not all at once. The tourniquet It doesn't do much either. Rescue crews may not find your naked, mutilated body pecked at by vultures at the bottom of the canyon until next month. Cutting off your arm is slow suicide.) I felt so uncomfortable that I gradually moved the knife away, I couldn't do it.Maybe at this point I'm not ready for amputation.Or maybe the hotly debated voices are right and it's suicide.To undergo an amputation must go through a lot of torture.who knows?Maybe someone will pass by tomorrow.The only thing I'm sure of is the ever-increasing possibility of lengthy and disgusting surgery. I'm chopping bones like I'm chopping rocks. My fighting spirit must be on top gear at all times.I shuddered at the thought, my eyes slowly closed and my mouth slightly opened. I can imagine the blood spattered on the rocky walls of the canyon, and the bloody arms.Two white bones sticking to the flesh, hanging from the blood-stained band, will be the result of my hard drilling into my bones.Then my head slumped over my limp torso, my sickly body braced by knife-severed bones.It seems to be watching the final chapter of an album, but the picture is frozen in this scene.It was my waking nightmare, and the ominousness made me put down the knife, and I retched several times. I blinked slowly, my vision blurred for a moment of dizziness, but after a while it stabilized and returned to calm.This disgusting surgical seminar is over, and I take another look at my situation.I had no choice but to try everything.Even though I've gone through the initial stages of every possible situation, none of them can proceed now, and I'm stuck every time.I'll be dead before help comes, I can't get my hand out, I can't move the boulder, I can't cut off my hand.Feeling hopeless for the first time.What little optimism I had was gone, and I felt alone, angry, and scared.I complain to myself: I will die.It doesn't matter when you die. I will die here. I will end my life here. I'll be curled up here, lying where my arms got stuck, until the dehydration doesn't play with me to death. Why worry about drinking water?This is just prolonging my misery.I am full of melancholy and only hope that a flood will end my life quickly.Thoughts bent on tearing my wrists went in and out of my head several times.My despair turned to childish anger.I hate this boulder.I hate it!I hate this canyon even more.I hate this cold stone pressing down on my right arm.I hated the swooning musty smell of the green ooze behind my legs clinging to the stone walls of the canyon to the south.I hated the cool wind blowing on my face, and the claustrophobia caused by the dim light in the cave, even the sandstone looked evil. I hate you!As I read it word by word, I slapped the hateful stone with the palm of my left hand, and tears welled up in my eyes. The echo of the roar sounded in the canyon, and then disappeared without a sound.At this moment, another voice sounded coldly in my head. (That rock is there to do what it is supposed to do. It is their nature to roll down. It just does what nature does. It's all set, it's waiting for you. If It's still stuck there for who knows how long without you coming over and moving it? You did it, Alan. You asked for it. You chose to be here today; you chose to do the descent in the canyon alone; you You choose not to tell anyone where you are; you choose to reject the advice your female partner gives you to get yourself into trouble, you create this accident. It is you who want things to be like this. You have been moving towards this situation since a long time ago. See how far you go to find this attraction? It's not what you deserve, it's what you want.) Knowing my own responsibility for the situation soothed my anger.I'm still depressed, but I don't take my anger out on stones anymore.Suddenly a very special thought appeared: Christie and Megan were the angels sent to save me, but I ignored them. Everything happens for a reason, and the beautiful part of life is that we are not allowed to know what those reasons are.They may not have wings and harps, but Kristi and Megan came into my life with a mission: They were trying to save me from this event.I believe they will eventually know that tragedy has happened to me.I thought over and over again about the last question Christie asked me. What do you think you can sense on the big mural?And they kept urging me to go with them, but I was blocked by my stubbornness and ambition.It was me who screwed up.People will always find what they want to pursue in life in some roundabout way.How did I come here?I don't fully understand why, but gradually I understand that eventually what I want happens like this.I've been looking for adventure, and now it's coming to me. I remember talking to Megan about how she got lost on Cedar Terrace.The mesa is in southeastern Utah, between canyons and ancient cliff ruins.She and her friends snuggled up by the juniper-bough fire all night.I told her I'd been lost in Cedar Terrace once, too, for an hour with my friend Jamie.Later, with luck, we saw the truck parked on the platform.Then I told Megan about an episode that happened back in February, when my friend Rachel and I were going to ride a 32-kilometer trail between the canyons in San Feuer Mound in central Utah.After twenty-four kilometers we reached a steep gravel slope that Rachel couldn't climb.For an hour, I kept encouraging her, teaching her, pulling her, and even standing her on my back, but she still couldn't climb the three-meter slope, we had to turn back, and later saw a branch on the road 68 kilograms of logs, we dragged it 180 meters back to use as a ladder.This whole conversation about getting lost and stranded in Canyonlands should have been an ominous foreshadowing of where I'd be stuck.After this conversation, I guess I was cursed to go with Kristi and Meghan if I knew it. The idea was ridiculous, but the weariness of not sleeping for thirty-two hours cast a shadow over me.I felt sluggish and somewhat disoriented, and the lack of sleep made my weakness worse.I might doze off and fall, so I buckle up my sling chain first and attach it to the drop ring that hangs from a fixed point so my legs can take the weight off my body.The watch in his hand quietly came to 2:45 in the afternoon. Pulling out my mini camcorder, I recorded myself for the first time in my life.The procedure required for my current situation: first remove the pack, unfasten the buckles on the straps, and then rotate the pack to my lap.Other than the tacos, the only thing left in the backpack to use is the camera.I turned on the palm-sized camcorder, rotated the digital screen, and after confirming that I was in the image frame, I pressed the video button and placed it on top of the stone. (Go ahead. After you die, someone who sees this will find out. You can put it on a stone and it says, please play and point the camera with an arrow or something. Maybe the flood will come Separate it from your body. Ask it to tell people everything that happens here.) I started recording.It's 3:50 p.m. on Sunday.I've been stuck in Blue Eye John Canyon on the Great Fault for twenty-four hours.My name is Alan.roston.My parents are Donna and Larry.Rolston, they live in Eaglewood, Colorado.Anyone who finds this camera please pass this on to them.please.I will be very grateful to you. I kept blinking, not paying attention to the screen on the camera.I shaved four days ago at Aspen's house, and four days later my beard has grown into a mess.But what really keeps me from looking at myself is my haggard eyes.My eyes are huge, with deep sockets that truly reflect the torment I've been through.Baggy bags under the eyes droop to the lower eyelids. He was out of breath, and his words were slurred with exhaustion.I tried my best to make a clear sound. So I hiked blue eye john canyon yesterday between 2:45 and 3 o'clock on saturday and somewhere in there i got to the lower crevices in blue eye john canyon for a free descent the second set of stones.That's why I'm still here now.When I was pulling one of the stones, it fell, and it fell very fast, crushing my right hand in an instant. Picking up the camera, I aim at the super small gap between the rock and the wall, where my forearm and wrist get stuck, and then I move the cam to the point where it's pinning down on my wrist, and I shoot this from the top down Gray-blue hands. What you see here is my arm, it's been stuck in the stone for twenty-four hours and the blood hasn't flowed there, it's gone. I then point the camera up and take pictures of the slings and drop rings. The rope you see is for my chair so I don't have to stand all the time.I wasn't doing the descent at the time of the accident, but I put on a harness afterwards so I was able to stay seated. In addition, I also made a lot of efforts to maintain my body temperature.I only have a little water left.When I got here, there was less than a liter of water left, now there is only a third of a liter left.At this rate, I'll be dead before tomorrow morning. Another cool breeze came and I shivered involuntarily for almost five seconds. My body has a hard time controlling its own temperature. Cough I can't breathe.I frowned, my face contorted, and I had trouble breathing from speaking. No one knows my whereabouts, except for the two girls I met yesterday.Kristi and Megan from Moab are doing outreach training there.They left at the Blue-Eyed John West fork, and I chose to keep going. I have a bike, locked, key in my pocket, parked 1.6km southeast of Burr Pass, if you go southeast, it's on the left side of the road, 130km from the curb Seven meters under a tree.The car was a red Rocky Mountain Thin Air.The car is still there. There was another gust of wind, and I squinted in the wind, trying to keep the sand out of my eyes.The rumble of the wind was louder than my voice, so I stopped recording.After I had sorted out my thoughts, I re-recorded again, explaining my choices. I'm shivering.Earlier I tried to move the rocks with rigging.I set a fixed point and try to move the stone.But the stone did not move. I shook my head in frustration and yawned, battling waves of tiredness. I also tried digging in stone.Twenty-four hours of hard work yields only a little bit, and unless I have a hundred and fifty hours I may not be able to achieve my goal.I think part of the problem was that my right hand was rubbing against the stone.Every time I dig out part of the stone, it moves a little bit and then presses right back down to my right hand.I can't feel it moving, but if I look closely, the gap between the stone and the wall does seem to be getting smaller and smaller.So, there you can see gouges under the stone.I moved the rock quite a bit.There are some that you can't see because my arm is covering it, and also because the rock has been moved. I paused to lick my dry lips, swallowed reluctantly, and let out a long, frustrated sigh.As I reconsidered my situation, I heard a drawdown in my voice.My failed choices shattered confidence and discouraged me. So, those two options were out, leaving only the third option to cut off my arm. I squeezed.My face was cramped for ten seconds. After I calmed down, I continued to record, explaining in frustration. I got a tourniquet on, everything was ready and going, but I thought about it a few times as suicide.Because from here, it's a four hour walk to where I parked my car.This is a grade four mountaineering. If you go back from the path I came from, it will take at least four hours to get to the place where I parked, although I have a bicycle.Moreover, it takes several hours to get out of the Xichakou, not less than two hours, maybe two and a half hours. As for the fourth-level mountaineering, it may not be possible to complete it with one hand.You'd also have to deal with blood loss and dehydration, so I ruled that out.I figured if I did cut off my arm, I wouldn't be able to get out alive. The fourth option is that someone may pass by here.But this is not a very popular canyon, and it is an extended part of the canyon. It is very sparsely populated. It is unlikely that anyone will pass here before I die due to lack of water and hypothermia. The weather is kind of weird. It's nineteen degrees Celsius, and it was about the same at this time yesterday; I think it's probably a degree or two cooler now than it was yesterday.After midnight it would drop to thirteen degrees, so I was shaking most of the night.When I'm awake, I'm chiseling rocks. If I'm not quite awake, I'm sitting and trying to sleep. I began by listing the most likely rescue scenarios. Whether it's because I didn't show up to the party on Monday night, or because I didn't show up for work on Tuesday, they assume I'm missing but all they know is that I'm in Utah.I guess my truck will be found.But the first time anyone thought something might have happened to me, what I had done, tried to find me, at least Wednesday, Thursday, three days later. It would be incredible to be found as early as Tuesday. Before I die, I want to say goodbye to my family. No matter how much I suffer here, they must suffer more than me.After the break, I stammered out what was on my mind and tried to apologize to my family, who I knew would have a hard time because of my disappearance and death. sorry! With tears in my eyes, I stopped recording, and after wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I recorded again. Mom, Dad, I love you.Sanja, I love you.You guys make me so proud.I don't know how I got here, but it's a given.I go out looking for adventure and excitement, to feel truly alive.But I went out by myself and didn't tell anyone where I was going, which was stupid.If someone knew where I was, or if I had a companion, I'd probably be on my way to the hospital by now.And if I had told the janitor, or left a note in my truck stupid!Fool!Fool! I stop filming, turn off the camcorder, and wrap it up.As I said on the tape, the best option is to wait for possible rescue.My strategy has changed.I need to keep warm, drink less water, and conserve energy.Stop actively trying to save myself, I'm going to wait for rescue.