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DAY ONE: SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 9 A.M. The trip was a last-minute decision after some friends had called off a mountaineering trip. Usually I would leave a detailed schedule with my roommates, but since I left without knowing what I was going to do, the only word I gave was "Utah." Though the Blue John circuit will be only a day trip, I'm carrying a 13 kilo pack, most of the weight taken up with climbing gear for descending the steep canyon system, food, and four litres of water. By 2:30, I'm about seven miles into the canyon, at the midpoint of my descent, where the canyon is not more than 1 metre wide. To get down a steep drop I try to hang off the edge of a boulder which is stuck between the walls of the canyon. Just before I let go of it I feel it move and I know this isn't good. As soon as I land on the floor of the canyon I hardly have time to look up before the boulder comes crashing down. In the narrow space I cannot avoid the boulder. Before I have time to realise what is happening it bounces against one wall and then smashes my right arm against the other wall and stops there. The agony throws me into a panic. "F***!" I yank my arm three times in a futile attempt to pull it out from under the rock. But I'm stuck. There is no way I can pull it out or move the boulder. There is no feeling in my right hand at all and it is already turning grey. My immediate worry is water. The average survival time in the desert without water is between two and three days. My next thought is escape. Eliminating ideas that are just too dumb (like breaking open my AA batteries on the boulder and hoping the acid eats into the stone but not my arm), I decide to try to chip away the rock around my hand with my multitool knife. This proves to be a terribly slow process. Even if I wanted to sleep, I couldn't. My hand is trapped too high up so I can't lie down, and as soon as my knees bend and my weight pulls on my wrist the pain is agonizing. Using a rope and some of my climbing gear I manage to fix a kind of seat with my left hand. That helps me take the weight off my feet although I soon realise that the straps restrict the blood supply and I can't sit in it for more than 20 minutes.
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