The Canyon Catastrophe

“Those canyons contain some of the deadliest snowpack ravines in the world,” complained Rebecca Jones. “And I don’t say that for self-aggrandizement, but just to say that’s where I was at my life when I walked into that Utah canyon back in 2005,” she added as she described her tragedy in an interview.

On Wednesday, October 27th, without telling anyone about my plans, I packed her hiking boots, a hydration system, climbing equipment and notably, a pocket sized utility tool, put my mountain bike in the back of my SUV and drove almost five hours to a remote part of Utah called the ‘end of the world’. I had only planned to go a day hiking and maybe do so rappelling so that I could explore the slot canyons. I’d only taken a gallon of water with me, assuming I would back my lodge by nightfall. I continued my adventure by scaling the canyon on foot which required technical rock and canyoneering skills to navigate. However, I was professional and was accustomed to being in far, far riskier environments. Going into that canyon, seemed like a walk in the park; there were no avalanches, it was balmy day and I was simply walking…

I slipped, suddenly!

I was tossed into abyss, while I fell down the chasm, dislodging an 360kg chockstone boulder. I crushed my arm and got pinned against the canyon wall! Everything happened so rapidly, I barely had the time to soak in the pain! I immediately made some attempts, rather futile to chip away at that boulder with my utility knife but all in vain. I hung there, looking below, into the void, which echoed ‘this is the end of the world’! Numbness, spread through my body and I lost sense of everything. Darkness, descended on the deep ravines, I realized how alone I was.

I taunted myself, “If you want someone to show up and help you if something unforeseen happens, you’d better tell someone where you are going! But I’d made a choice, the one I need to live with”.

Living through that was far from easy, the boulder was smushing my wrist so tightly that everything up to my fingertips had lost sensation. Thus, I began stabbing the blade of my knife into the dead skin of my thumb.

Hisss… The air escaped from the decomposing digit.

I realized early that I had to cut off my arm to get free but I was a bit reluctant. Though, I started finding ways to amputate my hand. After three days inside the canyon, out of water, delirious and hallucinating, I had an epiphany, “I felt my bone bend, so I could use the boulder to break it! All I could do was see it through the end.”

I managed to use my body weight to violently bend my arm until the boulder snapped my forearm. I began sawing and cutting through the remaining cartilage using my multi-tool. The process was rigorous and took more than an hour, I had endured both the extremes of pain and absolute elation.