Aron Ralston

Aron Ralston is an avid outdoorsman, author, and motivational speaker.

Aron Ralston is an avid outdoorsman, author, and motivational speaker. In April of 2003, he dislodged a boulder while descending a slot canyon at Blue John Canyon, in Eastern Wayne County, Utah, crushing his hand and pinning it against a canyon wall. After five days of entrapment with little water and food, Aron resorted to amputating his arm in order to free himself. The incident is documented in his autobiographical memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place and is the subject of the Oscar-nominated film 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle, and starring James Franco.

Aron Ralston, Mountaineer and Adventurer

Following the accident, Aron Ralston continues to test his limits through outdoor sports. One of his goals prior to the accident was to climb all of Colorado’s 59 peaks over 14,000 feet, solo and in winter. It was a landmark ambition, unaccomplished by any other mountaineer. Less than two years after his amputation, in March of 2005, Ralston completed his project, not only finishing the climbs solo and during the official calendar winter, but with a prosthetic right arm.

Aron Ralston

Aron Ralston in Death Valley

Starting with a 2001 solo climb of 18,000’ Pisco Sur in Peru, Aron Ralston has participated in expeditions throughout the Americas, including: a January 2005 ascent of Aconcagua’s Polish Glacier Direct; climbs of the highest peaks in Costa Rica (2005), Guatemala (2007), and Mexico (2006); a February 2007 exploration of the Mayan pyramids of El Mirador with lead archeologist Richard Hansen; and, a solo ascent of 22,000’-high Monte Pissis in Argentina on that same trip.

In June of 2008, after solo-climbing Denali, North America’s highest mountain, Ralston skied from the 20,320’ summit. It was Ralston’s third of the Seven Summits, of which he has currently climbed five since his amputation.

As a former raft guide and still-avid boatman, Aron has rowed more than an hundred trips on the Arkansas, Yampa, Green and Colorado rivers. In 2009, Ralston led a rafting expedition through the Grand Canyon.

Aron Ralston’s more recent adventures have included raising two children, climbing and skiing a dozen of Colorado’s Fourteeners, leading ski mountaineering expeditions to Mt. Elbrus in Russia in 2012, Muztagh Ata in China in 2013, and the Ecuadorian volcanos in 2014, and canyoneering in Utah and Arizona.

Additionally, Aron Ralston serves as an honorary ambassador for Paradox Sports, a non-profit that provides equipment and opportunities for people with disabilities to enjoy rock and ice climbing.