The Everest Climber Who Ignored Every Warning

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this product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent any disease i get so many headaches every month it could be chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month each lasting four hours or more botox autobotulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine it's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month prescription botox is injected by your doctor effects of botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking breathing eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition patients with these conditions before and after injection can be diagnosed with a life-threatening condition injection or at highest risk side effects may include allergic reactions neck and injection site pain fatigue and headache allergic reactions can include rash welts asthma symptoms and dizziness don't receive botox if there's a skin infection tell your doctor your medical history muscle or nerve conditions including als lugarix disease myasthenia gravis or lambert eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects why wait ask your doctor visit botox chronic migraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more in today's episode i'm going to tell you about two people who pushed deep into the wilderness chasing something they could not let go of first we're going to mount everest where a woman ignored warning after warning on her way to the summit only to learn that reaching the top is not the same thing as surviving the mountain and then we're heading into a remote utah canyon where a solo hiker became trapped in a situation so impossible that his only way out was almost too brutal to believe but first we recently hit 1,000 five-star reviews on the show thank you so much to everyone who left a review on the show thank you so much to everyone who left a review on the show thank you so much to everyone who left a review you guys are seriously the best audience out there my next goal is to hit 10,000 five-star reviews i don't even know if that's possible to be honest but if you want to help out please leave a five-star review and be sure to follow the show as well and now listen on if you dare on mount everest a warning is not a suggestion on mount everest if an experienced sherpa tells you to turn around then you better do it or else but when sharia shah chlorphine was given exact warning she ignored it and it gets worse because that was only one of four distinct warnings that she was given before she even reached the summit of mount everest she ignored every single one of them and at first she seemed to be rewarded for this on may 19th 2012 after nearly 20 hours of climbing through the death zone sharia finally pulled herself onto the summit the highest point on earth she had literally mortgaged her house to pay her way here a brand new guiding company that had never successfully put a client on top of everest by the way in order to get here sharia had dreamed of this moment since she was nine years old and in what must have been the most exciting moment of her life she paused for a photo of course and while you can't fully see her face because of her oxygen mask you can still tell that she's smiling for a few minutes it must have felt like she had proven the entire world wrong including that overly desperate effort to turn around however everest doesn't care if you made it to the top it only cares if you can get yourself back down and as sharia stood there triumphantly on the summit she had no idea that less than eight hours later she would be collapsed in the snow literally begging her sherpas to save her but that's the harshest version of what happened there's actually another version of that exact same story sharia was sold a dream turned nightmare by the mount everest industrial complex and by the time that anyone tried to stop her they had already taken her money and it was far too late sharia shah was born on january 11th 1979 in kathmandu nepal where of course the himalayan peaks loom in the distance like giants daring to be climbed almost when sharia was nine years old her parents actually arranged something very special for her it was this this helicopter tour of the highest parts of the himalayas which was actually a pretty rare privilege that most nepalese children could only dream about the helicopter lifted off and rose higher and higher carrying young sharia towards the mountains that she'd always seen from a distance but never from like up close you know the sun was even rising on mount everest as they approached and the view was was breathtaking the kind of beauty that stays in a child's imagination forever in this moment sharia turned to her parents and she asked them why they weren't climbing the mountain themselves you know why people didn't just walk up there like she had just walked up the hills near their home and her parents explained of course that well climbing mount everest was very difficult it was also very expensive and that reaching the summit by foot was something that only very few people in the world could actually accomplish now this helicopter ride was it was like the moment according to everyone who knew sharia at least the moment when the idea of climbing mount everest took root i mean i can just see nine-year-old sharia kind of saying to herself you know one day i'll do that one day i'll stand on top of that mountain when sharia was 21 she ended up taking a job as an assistant purser on a cruise ship she was basically drawn to any experiences that would let her see the world and this particular job was a great way to do just that and so it was there somewhere out on the open ocean that sharia met a man named bruce chlorphine bruce was a canadian citizen who had been working on cruise ships for years as a pianist he was about a decade older than sharia and on paper they pretty much had nothing in common i mean bruce was jewish sharia was hindu bruce was canadian sharia was nepalese uh bruce had a relatively stable life and sharia basically had the complete opposite and yet despite all these differences the couple had an instant connection that transcended all of that you see before sharia's mother had passed away she had selected a mumbai doctor for sharia to marry like as an arranged partner but sharia basically shunned this man completely and so ultimately she moved to canada and in 2002 she married bruce this was a choice that said pretty much everything about who sharia was she was someone who would make her own path even if it meant defying tradition and family plans and even advice from you know close family members anyways the couple would end up settling in toronto where sharia became a fashion buyer while also building her own businesses on the side she threw herself right into her adopted country with the same intensity that she brought to everything else in her life for instance she involved herself in women's organizations children's groups and even politics uh and this is crazy uh politics because in 2011 she actually ran as a candidate in a local election now she didn't win but that wasn't really the point you see sharia was never someone who did things you know halfway in that summer she demonstrated exactly how far she'd go when she believed in something a friend invited sharia to a small protest outside of the ontario legislature you know maybe a dozen people demanding the government do something about high auto insurance costs and rising gas prices i don't really know but and actually speaking of that sharia didn't really know either she knew pretty much nothing about these issues but when the organizers announced that they were staging a hunger strike and would take no food or water until they got a meeting sharia immediately joined in and actually she didn't just join in she kind of became the main character on day three of the protest she was the first person to join the protest and she was she was the first person to join the protest and she was the first person to join the protest and she was the first person to join the protest and she collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital and then a few hours later when she was released she was right back on that lawn protesting once again this hunger strike ended up fizzling out after about five days when the police eventually ordered them to clear out or they would all be arrested but sharia had shown that when she committed to something she committed completely in consequences or even her own health and hydration well all of that could be damned so obviously sharia's life was just a complete whirlwind you know moving to canada marriage the business the politics the hunger strike but throughout all of that stuff there was one constant dream that remained and that of course was mount everest the same mountain that she'd seen from the helicopter when she was just nine years old the summit that her parents had told her was basically impossible to reach and so in 2010 sharia decided that it was time to stop dreaming and time to start climbing and let's just get this next detail out of the way right now because it's really important before 2010 sharia had exactly zero experience mountaineering. She had never climbed a significant peak before. She'd never been at high altitude. She'd never tested herself in conditions even remotely similar to what she would face on Mount Everest. But what she did have was determination, a childhood dream, and $100,000 worth of debt that she was willing to take on in order to make that dream happen. Once Sharia set her sights on Mount Everest, the training started. Every single day for almost two years, she would run or walk a half marathon, often carrying a heavy pack on her back for a lot of it. She was building the kind of cardiovascular endurance, as well as leg strength, that would keep her moving at altitude. She also did indoor rock climbing to develop upper body strength, and she also learned the basics when it comes to climbing movements. Sharia maintained this regimen with the same intensity that she brought to Everest. She was able to climb up to the top of Mount Everest, and she was able to climb up to the top of Mount Everest. She was able to climb up to the top of Mount Everest, in her life, basically sculpting her body into something that could potentially survive the death zone. But here's what she didn't do. As far as I could tell, she didn't actually climb any real mountains. She didn't test herself at altitude to see how her body would respond to oxygen deprivation. She didn't learn the dozens and dozens of technical skills that separate recreational hikers from true mountaineers, things like how to arrest a fall with an ice axe, or how to navigate crevasse fields, how to read weather patterns at high altitude, or how to manage your oxygen supply over a multi-day climb. Gray roots entering the chat? Uninvited? Garnier's got you. Garnier Color Sensation Root Retouch covers up to 100% of grays in just 10 minutes. No ammonia, no mess, and the color lasts up to four weeks. It's as easy to apply as shampoo. Plus, it's vegan and cruelty-free. 10 minutes. Sensational color. Sensational price. With those savings, your next girl's night is basically free. Find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you. One gummy supplement brand. Stock up on ollie.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Chronic migraine. 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox, anabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread out hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxin. As these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. The Lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows. Their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything, even our music. That hit song named after the color of lemons? Not a coincidence. Big Lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years. Think about it. But now, 7up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda. Now lime comes first. 7up. Flip the sip. With ShareMyTrip from Uber, you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most. Like Dan and Hannah, who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room. Or Tiffany, who's running late as usual, and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way. Or Sam, who never goes anywhere without her roommate knowing exactly where she is. Some journeys are meant to be shared. Share your ride in real time with ShareMyTrip on Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. Her entire preparation consisted of getting physically fit, while hoping that the Everest company she would eventually hire could teach her everything else that she needed to know. And somehow, she found that company. A company called Utmost Adventure Trekking, which was a brand new operation that had literally never successfully guided anyone to Everest, summit before 2012. And so with that, you're probably wondering, why the hell did she choose them then? Sharia chose them through some family connections in Nepal. That was a big part of it. And another big part of it was the price, which was on the lower end. I mean, it probably seemed like a bargain. However, once you add in equipment and airfare, a ton of other expenses, the total bill for Sharia's dream still came out to about $100,000. And that was a lot more money than Sharia had. But she also wasn't going to let that stop her, of course. I mean, not even her husband, Bruce, could persuade her not to do this at this point. I mean, he knew his wife well enough to support her fully. He couldn't talk her out of it. And so ultimately, the couple agreed to take out a second mortgage on their home so that Sharia could pursue this dream. And apparently, even that wasn't enough to finance this trip. Because Sharia then created a website where she asked for donations and promoted her goal of becoming the first South Asian woman from Canada to summit Mount Everest. And that's kind of a mouthful. But you know, if I was the first person from Rice Memorial High School in Burlington, Vermont, for instance, to summit Mount Everest, I'd probably brag about that forever. But back to Sharia's website, which actually featured a digitally altered photograph of her standing in front of Everest, which was kind of weird. It also included inspirational messages about how nothing is impossible and how even the word impossible says I'm possible. Get it? She also started organizing fundraising events around town, hoping to gather supports and maybe even raise some money for Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. On the surface, Sharia's Everest campaign was actually building some real momentum. However, it's important to know that behind the scenes, her friends and her family were expressing genuine concerns to her, and they kind of collectively became the first major warning to Sharia telling her not to go up Mount Everest. But Sharia was Sharia. She was strong-willed. She was determined. She was the kind of person who nearly starved herself to death for a political cause she barely even understood. And so when her Canadian friends and family members expressed doubt about her Everest ambitions, I can imagine that Sharia took them to heart, but she probably didn't take them that seriously. So warning number one was ignored, and in April of 2012, at 33 years old, Sharia arrived at Everest Base Camp, and she met the company that would be coordinating her dream climb, Upmost Adventure Trekking. Now, Upmost Adventure Trekking's plan was very simple. They were going to teach Sharia everything she needed to know about mountaineering between Base Camp and Camp 4 of Mount Everest, all so that by the time she got into the death zone, she would have a little bit of experience. And so she was able to get to the top of Mount Everest, and she was able to get to the top of Mount Everest, and she was able to get to the top of Mount Everest, and she was able climbing at altitude. And if you think about it, this is kind of an insane approach. I mean, I'm no Mount Everest expert, but this feels to me at least like the kind of approach that no reputable guiding company would ever consider. But Upmost Adventure Trekking apparently wasn't exactly a reputable company yet. I mean, they were kind of a startup after all, and they were desperate for clients. They were willing to take on anyone who could pay them. And so to them, the only way to get experienced clients, they were willing to take on anyone who could pay them. And so to them, the only way to get experienced was to just have them gain experience once they got to Everest, which I guess makes a little bit of sense, but I mean, I don't know. Anyways, during her month of training on Mount Everest itself, problems became immediately apparent, and this led to the second warning that Sharia received about her expedition. Again, you have to remember that while she was physically fit, she wasn't just like an amateur climber. She was literally a total beginner. She wasn't just like an amateur climber. She was like an amateur climber. Including like the most basic things, like how to put on crampons, for instance. And that's something that, you know, most climbers are going to learn on smaller mountains well before they even set foot on Everest. But instead, Sharia was learning this literally at the very last minute. It's almost like learning to drive on the Autobahn or learning to swim in like the deep ocean. I mean, it's technically possible, but you're also kind of setting yourself up for disaster. The company's expedition manager, a man named Rishi Raj Kadel, he watched Sharia struggle during training and later admitted, quote, she's slow. Everyone knew she was slow. But Rishi also said something else that reveals utmost adventure trekking's approach to climbing. He said, quote, she wasn't sick from altitude, never any headaches. She continued walking. The way that I interpret that, which may or may not be correct, is that he's kind of saying that as long as she wasn't like actively dying to training, then, you know, they could consider her fit enough to attempt the summit and again that's me editorializing but like i don't know how else to read that maybe i'm wrong now it's important to note that sharia's husband bruce you know who was back home in toronto well he says that his wife never told him about her struggles during training even though they were you know in frequent phone contact throughout her time at everest base camp which raises another question should utmost adventure trekking have called bruce to like make sure he understood the danger that his wife might be putting herself in especially since sharia was there all alone you know it just feels a little weird that bruce learned about all of these failed training runs and these serious warnings after what i'm about to tell you about had already happened so this second warning which was more of like a series of giant red flags was not only ignored by sharia but it was also ignored by most of the people at utmost adventure trekking and yet despite all of this i'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing but i'm not sure if it's a sharia and the utmost adventure trekking team began their climb like their actual climb up mount everest feeling oddly confident in their plan however just as things were about to get really really serious a third warning came right around the time after sharia had reached camp three you see when she attempted to climb from camp three up the lotse face in order to reach camp four this took her over seven hours now to be fair if i were to do this climb it would probably take about seven thousand hours but just to put it in perspective a typical climber does this in under five hours and so being two hours slower than average on a training climb is a pretty massive concern it's a sign that someone just fundamentally is not ready for the challenges ahead and this is exactly when utmost adventure trekking's most senior sherpa aka the most experienced guide that they had well he threw in the towel on sharia's summit hopes as the date for her summit push approached he actually changed his mind about guiding sharia he told her directly that she would basically be putting her life on the line as well as the lives of her sherpas and it was just not safe for anyone for her to actually attempt to summit mount everest and clearly this wasn't just a casual statement or a gentle suggestion i mean it was a direct warning from an experienced mountaineer a warning that this attempt would likely end in sharia's death as well as the deaths of those around her but regardless of this utmost adventure trekking you know faced with a client who'd paid a hundred thousand dollars and mortgaged her house for this attempt and was now standing on everest with them by the way well they made a decision that prioritized business over safety because the senior sherpa bailed sharia was then assigned to two years of service and she was then sent to the hospital and she was then sent to the hospital two less experienced sherpas some younger guides who didn't have the seniority to refuse a paying client the way that the senior sherpa had the company's lead guide and managing director a man named ganesh thakuri decided that he and the senior sherpa who was signing off from sharia's expedition would focus on some other clients and their own summit attempts rather than helping their most inexperienced climber and to be clear nothing about this is illegal but it sure feels insane right i mean all i can think was like maybe they were hoping that sharia would just come to her senses and just give up on summoning everest before it actually got dangerous however if that was what they were thinking and i don't know that for sure they clearly didn't know anything about sharia and her feelings about impossible they didn't know how stubborn she was how driven she was to accomplish her goals sharia was obviously not going to bail on this attempt and it was very clear by the way that sharia was not going to bail on this attempt and it was very clear by the way that sharia was not going to bail on this attempt and it was very clear by the way that utmost adventure trekking was essentially operating under the idea that the customer was always right which is usually pretty valid but on mount everest well customers turn into casualties just like that gray roots entering the chat uninvited garnier's got you garnier color sensation retouch covers up to 100 of grays in just 10 minutes no ammonia no mess and the color lasts up to five minutes and the color lasts up to five minutes and the color lasts up to four weeks it's as easy to apply as shampoo plus it's vegan and cruelty free 10 minutes sensational color sensational price with those savings your next girl's night is basically free find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you hey friends olivia from ollie between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting you need science-backed solutions that work with your life that's where ollie comes in start your mornings off right with multis made to support nutrition and immune health choose the right one and you're ready to go from our lineup of gut supporting probiotics and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fam chase their big dreams head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand stock up on ollie.com today these statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent any disease chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month each lasting four hours or more botox on a botulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start it's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month it's for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month it prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo prescription botox is injected by your doctor effects of botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking breathing eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk side effects may include allergic reactions neck and injection site pain fatigue and headache allergic reactions can include rash welts asthma symptoms and dizziness don't receive botox if there's a skin infection tell your doctor about it and they'll be happy to help you out doctor your medical history muscle or nerve conditions including als lugeric's disease myasthenia gravis or lambert eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects why wait ask your doctor visit botox chronic migraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more the lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything even our music that hit song named after the color of lemon not a coincidence big lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years think about it but now seven up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip with share my trip from uber you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most like dan and hannah who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room or tiffany who's running late as usual and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way look she's right there she's three minutes away or sam who never goes anywhere without her roommate knowing exactly where she is some journeys are meant to be shared share your ride in real time with share my trip on uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn learn more on the uber app on may 18th 2012 at 7 30 in the evening sharia began her final summit push and i want to be clear here according to my research anyways starting a summit attempt at 7 30 p.m is already a bit unusual most climbers will leave camp for right around midnight they kind of time their push so that they reach the summit in the morning and then have the entire afternoon to descend before darkness and also the dropping temperatures you know both those things make everything way more dangerous however we know that sharia was very slow and her sherpas knew this as well and so the early start was meant to keep her from getting stuck in the massive traffic jams that had already been plaguing everest in this particular season which like as if sharia wasn't already in some trouble well the 2012 climbing season was shaping up to be one of the worst since 1996 and if you know anything about mount everest history you know how much of a deadly disaster the 1996 season was more than 500 climbers and guides had arrived at base camp by the spring of 2012 all aiming for the same narrow weather window when conditions on the summit would be survivable and the result was predictably bottlenecks on the climbing route where dozens of climbers would wait for hours at critical choke points some climbers reported waiting up to two hours at one single bottleneck in the death zone of mount everest where 80 mile per hour winds blasted them over and over people became disoriented exhausted frostbitten you name it i mean it was just a terrible place to be and it was no wonder that some climbers ended up just saying to hell with it and turned back but surprisingly as sharia climbed right into all of this chaos with her two junior sherpas beside her at first she was actually feeling pretty good like like really good and that's because she was already tapping her supplemental oxygen supply at a slightly higher than usual rate her body simply needed more oxygen to function than you know more experienced climbers and while you can probably understand why this is going to be a problem very shortly uh this did temporarily give her and her sherpas some added confidence that that maybe she could actually do this damn thing and maybe she could actually summit mount everest and so while other more experienced climbers began to turn back due to the delays and the brutal winds sharia and her sherpas they kept pushing forward this has like all the markings of an underdog story right which is exactly what makes the fourth warning and what happened after it um Um, just so unbelievable. I don't know how else to say it. climbed higher and higher through the darkness and the thin air, a man named Ganesh Thakuri was coming down from his own successful summit. Now, Ganesh happened to be the managing director of Upmost Adventure Trekking, and he ran right into Sharia and her young Sherpas on that route near the south summit, which is about 500 feet away from the actual summit. Now, in this brief meeting, Ganesh immediately recognized a problem, and that was that Sharia was almost out of oxygen, her bottles were nearly empty, and she'd been climbing for close to 17 hours at this point, and she hadn't even gotten through the Hillary step yet, by the way. And so Ganesh was the one who presented the fourth warning to Sharia. He tried to convince her to turn around. When you're in the death zone like this, running out of oxygen isn't just like an inconvenience, it's essentially a funeral invitation. Your brain starts to shut down, your muscles stop responding, your judgment becomes so impaired that you can't even recognize that you're dying. And of course, Ganesh knew all of this. He knew what would happen if Sharia continued on, and so he begged her. He begged her to descend right now while she still had enough oxygen and strength to survive. But Sharia's response was blunt, and by this point in the story, very predictable. She said something along the lines of, I spent money and my goal is to reach the summit. I will go. Now, technically, Ganesh could have done stop Sharia. I mean, he wasn't just a random guide. He was literally the managing director of her expedition company. He could have made the Sherpas, who he was technically in charge of, turn her around. He could have exercised the authority that every guiding company reserves to abort a summit attempt when conditions become too dangerous. There's a lot of things he could have done, but Sharia was just so headstrong that instead Ganesh gave her one more bottle of oxygen, which she cracked open immediately. And then, he let her keep climbing. Fourth warning, ignored by Sharia and unenforced by utmost adventure trekking. After almost 20 hours of dragging herself up the mountain, which is nearly twice as long as it should have taken, by the way, Sharia reached the summit of Mount Everest at 2.20pm on May 19th, 2012. She actually stood up there for almost half an hour, taking in this moment that she'd dreamed about since she was literally 9 years old, also posing for photographs with the prayer flags and the curvature of the earth visible in the background. I mean, it is an incredible thing. Back at base camp, the expedition manager called Bruce, who was home in Toronto. It was actually 5.30 in the morning there, and so Bruce was awoken by the happy news that his wife had successfully summited. By breakfast, word had spread through Sharia's circle of supporters that she had actually accomplished that seemingly impossible childhood dream. As well as, the record she was chasing. I mean, Sharia had become the very first woman of South Asian descent from Canada to summit Mount Everest. She'd proven everyone wrong. Like that senior Sherpa who'd quit on her, or the friends who tried to stop her. Everyone who doubted that a woman with zero mountaineering experience could mortgage her house and buy her way to the top of the world. All that was left now was for her to get down the mountain. And folks, Sharia was already in trouble before she even started her descent. She'd been in the death zone for almost 20 hours by this point, and her body had just been pushed beyond its limits. She knew that she was about to be in for the fight of her life, but what she didn't know was that she was already screwed, and maybe not even by her own doing. According to Russell Bryce, who is a veteran Everest guide from New Zealand, utmost adventure trekking had simply given Sharia a lot of oxygen to reach the summit, but not enough for the return trip. And if that's true, I mean, that is just pure incompetence. If utmost adventure trekking really believed that the customer was always right, then they should have loaded Sharia up with enough oxygen to at least stand a chance at making it down. Almost as soon as the descent began, the situation became critical, like super, super fast. According to one of the Sherpas who later testified, quote, she could stand only if the two of them were able to make it to the summit. And that's just pure incompetence. held her and that for just a short while. But if she moved her legs, she would fall. And so the Sherpas were now essentially carrying a paralyzed woman down one of the most dangerous mountains on earth, while hundreds of other climbers squeezed past them on this very narrow route. And as if it couldn't get any worse, Everest's weather decided to contribute to this nightmare scenario. Strong winds struck Sharia and her Sherpas as darkness crept over the mountain. And it gets worse, somewhere in all of this chaos, Sharia became disconnected from her oxygen supply. And so without supplemental oxygen at this altitude, death comes very quickly, which at this point may have been the merciful outcome, not one we want, obviously, but you get what I'm saying. The Sherpas kept pushing her along, both physically and verbally, trying to keep her conscious and moving. They placed her arms on their shoulders and helped her walk. But Sharia was just too weak. She kept collapsing. And sometime right around 10 p.m. on May 19th, roughly 27 hours after she'd started climbing, Sharia laid down in the snow and spoke her final words. She said, quote, save me. Sharia died less than 1000 feet from Camp 4 on May 19th, 2012, the same day that she took that smiling picture. I think it was the same day that she took that smiling picture. I think it was the top of Mount Everest. She was draped in a Canadian flag. And then she was left there as the junior Sherpas prioritized saving their own lives at this point instead of bringing her now lifeless body down with them. But folks, despite her death, Sharia did not just disappear or become irrelevant. Actually, quite the opposite happened. Literally the next day, climber Leanne Shuttleworth and her father encountered Sharia's body during their descent from the summit. Sharia was apparently still clipped into the climbing line in the position where she had died. And so these climbers had to like maneuver around her in order to continue down the mountain, which is terrible, but not exactly unheard of on Mount Everest. And for 10 days, dozens of more climbers had to do the exact same thing, this horrifying maneuver around Sharia's body until finally a team of Sherpas recovered her body and brought her down to Camp 2, where eventually a helicopter could attempt retrieval. Friends, Olivia from Ollie. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where Ollie comes in. Start your mornings off right with multis made to support nutrition and immune health. Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics, and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fam chase their big dreams. Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand. It is intended to prevent any disease. 10 minutes, sensational color, sensational price. Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Not a coincidence. Think about it. But now, 7-Up is fighting back with their new lime-lemon soda. 7-Up. Flip the sip. With Share My Trip from Uber, you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most, like Dan and Hannah, who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room. Share your ride in real time with Share My Trip on Uber. up. Which is something I want you to think about for a second. I mean, think about how all of those years earlier, nine-year-old Sharia saw the Himalayas up close on that magical helicopter ride, and now this final helicopter ride would seal her fate. But the thing is, the 2012 climbing season wasn't just a disaster for Sharia, but for the entire Mount Everest industry. Three more people died on Everest the very same day as Sharia, bringing the 2012 season's death toll to 10, which to my knowledge made it the most deadly year on Everest since 1996 up until that point. But unlike in 1996, when the weather was pretty much the main culprit, there was a lot more human impact to point to for these deaths, which for a lot of people was completely inexcusable. The Mount Everest industry had been thrown into slumber. And it all was kind of boiling over now. People needed answers. And maybe even more than that, actually, they needed someone to blame. And this is when things didn't only get complicated, but they actually got quite strange. Now, as soon as the word got out about what happened to Sharia, a media firestorm was unleashed from two competing angles. The first angle that emerged in the media was basically that a woman ignores warnings and dies on Everest. And, you know, as I've been kind of emphasizing throughout this video, there's a lot of truth to that angle. I mean, she literally ignored the four biggest warnings of her entire life and she paid the price for it. However, I do want to say that focusing only on Sharia's mistakes ignores a much larger issue here, which is that utmost adventure trekking never should have accepted her as a client in the first place. Again, they were they were this brand new startup company with no Everest pedigree. And they took on a complete novice with zero mountaineering experience and promised to teach her everything she needed to know basically at the last minute. To me, that's not that's not guiding. That's tempting Everest to unleash its very worst on your paying client. And folks, that was the second angle that the media discussed. The angle that utmost adventure trekking was to blame for setting Sharia up to fail, which is a very big claim, but I'm not the one who made it. Several Everest experts actually did. Russell Bryce, who actually canceled his own Everest expedition in 2012 out of safety concerns. Well, he was brutal in his criticism of utmost adventure trekking, essentially allowing Sharia to climb Everest in the first place. He said that companies should always put saving lives ahead of reaching the summits. And at least to me, utmost clearly did not grasp that concept well enough to enforce it. Grace and Schaefer, who was a journalist from outside magazine, who was also at Everest base camp in 2012, pointed out that pairing inexperienced Sherpas with an inexperienced climber was just a terrible decision as well. I mean, any responsible company would have assigned their most experienced guides to Sharia specifically because she needed the support more than a typical climber. But that is not what happened. Instead, when that senior Sherpa basically declined to take Sharia up the mountain, utmost adventure trekking's response was to assign her to junior Sherpas. They overlooked the amateur skills that Sharia displayed during her training and sent her up the mountain anyways, also possibly with insufficient oxygen. And speaking of oxygen, don't forget that when Ganesh met Sharia near the summit and saw that she was running out of oxygen, he responded to her refusal, not by exercising his authority to end the climb, but instead by giving her a chance to climb. Giving her one more bottle of oxygen, essentially enabling her to continue. It seems to me that every step of the way, utmost adventure trekking prioritized getting Sharia to the summit over getting her home alive. They, in combination with Sharia herself, gambled with Sharia's life and they lost. But this controversy is much larger than just Sharia. The transformation of the world's highest peak into this destination where anyone with enough money can attempt a summit, well, it's created a very toxic situation around the mountain. Companies are competing on price, which means that they're incentivized to cut corners on support and perhaps safety. And it goes deeper because the Nepalese government issues permits to almost anyone who can pay the fee, even if they're maybe not qualified to climb the mountain because, well, those permits fund the tourism ministry. And then on the mountain, traffic jams form these bottlenecks because there's no meaningful restrictions on how many people can attempt the summit during any given weather window and way up in the death zone because no Sherpa can physically pull a struggling climber off the mountain. Obviously, all they can really do is just recommend that the climber turn around and then deal with whatever that climber's choices. And it might sound like an easy decision to turn around, you know, when you're hearing about it from the comfort of your own home. But you have to remember when someone has invested like, I don't know, $100,000 and taken out a second mortgage on their house. And announced to the world that they're going to summit Everest. I mean, how likely are they to accept defeat on their own, especially when there's someone built like Sharia, who had established her dream of climbing Everest at just nine years old and who had never given up on anything in her entire life. What I'm getting at here is that this entire system creates the perfect conditions for people like Sharia, very headstrong, stubborn people to die. And then very often it blames them. The victims for ignoring warnings when those warnings came far too late and often from the wrong people. And look, none of this is to absolve Sharia of any responsibility. I think she's equally as responsible as utmost adventure trekking. But just remember, if utmost adventure trekking had refused her as a client, which they probably should have, if regulations prevented total novices from attempting Everest, if traffic management prevented the bottleneck. That had depleted Sharia's oxygen supply. If all of those things hadn't happened, then she would probably still be alive today. You would think that Sharia's death might be a huge wake up call for the Mount Everest industrial complex, but unfortunately it wasn't. The traffic jams continued. More novice climbers paid their fees and started their summit attempts. More companies took on clients that they probably shouldn't have accepted. And of course, more people died chasing dreams on a mountain. That's pretty much become a business instead of a challenge. Oh, and get this. Apparently, utmost adventure trekking still operates to this day. And I have to believe it's now under some new management or at the very least has some better policies. Look, the truth is that Sharia bought her way onto Mount Everest and then Everest took everything from her, her money, her dreams, and then finally her life. And whether that's a story about personal stubbornness or industrialism, I don't know. I'm not going to go into too much detail about that right now, but it's just that a lot of people think it's because of the lack of knowledge and the lack of experience in the industry, negligence, or both. Well, that depends on which part of the tragedy you focus on. The customer ignored four giant warnings that she should have heeded, and that customer was also failed by an operator that never should have put her on that mountain in the first place. My heart goes out to Sharia, all of her friends and her family. Please show her some love in the comments. Um, if you're going to criticize her, I get it, but just do so respectfully, please. When you're down at sea level like we are versus when you're up at altitude, Sharia's story was about someone who kept going when she was told to turn around. But this next story is about what happens when there's no one there to warn you at all. In 2003, this hiker opened up his camcorder and recorded his final message to his family. After he wiped tears away from his eyes, he closed the camcorder and he grabbed his water bottle, but he questioned whether he should even drink the murky liquid that was inside of it. And then. With fear in his heart, he grabbed his pocket knife. Oh, and before I go on, I should mention that the hiker was doing all of this with just one hand. Folks, do I have a story for you today? This one's absolutely insane. It's a, it's a true man against wilderness type of situation. It's a tale that's almost too unbelievable to be true with a physical and mental toll that. I'm just going to be honest. I think it's pretty shocking to hear about at some points. In fact, there's actually a decent chance that you've already heard about this story because there's a pretty popular movie that was made about it, but I'm going to let you figure that out as we go. It'll be a fun little game. And also let's just say that the movie may not be the most accurate telling of this story out there because what actually happened is crazier than anything that Hollywood could have possibly made up. So without further ado, let's go back in time together to the 1980s. Where we're going to meet a boy named Aaron. Now as a kid, the mountains of Aaron's home state of Colorado, or is it Colorado? I don't know. Uh, these mountains really called to him. And by the way, this wasn't just a casual interest. Um, this is something I can relate to as someone who grew up in mountains, you know, in a Vermont, um, this was a deep ingrained passion. This kid, Aaron routinely hiked alone, uh, skied alone, climbed alone, and basically pushed the limits of what a young person. Should probably be doing in the wilderness all by themselves. But Aaron was just, you know, from a young age. obsessed with with taking on all of the challenges that the great outdoors provided and so i mean i'm sure some people tried but ultimately no one was going to tell him no and you have to understand that aaron wasn't just this like outdoor badass he was much more than that he was low-key kind of a genius he went on to be an engineering major at carnegie mellon and with that kind of degree he obviously could have made tons of money and had a great career in a bigger city right but aaron ended up staying true to himself after graduating uh and he moved to aspen aspen colorado where he worked at a local gear shop and of course he was hiking in the mountains just doing mountain stuff all the time and while he did have a solid group of friends to go out on the trails with there weren't many people who could really match how bold of an outdoorsman aaron was he was always willing to go the extra mile and so that often meant that he was out there 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with the number one gummy supplement brand stock up on ollie.com today these statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent any disease the lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything even our music that hit song named after the color of lemons not a coincidence big lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years think about it but now seven up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month each lasting four hours or more botox on a botulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start it's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month it prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo prescription botox is injected by your doctor effects of 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gets back to her college dorm room or tiffany who's running late as usual and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way she's right there she's three minutes away or sam who never goes anywhere without her roommate knowing exactly where she is and she's not going to be able to get back to her dorm room or tiffany who knows where she is some journeys are meant to be shared share your ride in real time with share my trip on uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn learn more on the uber app and so even though he did end up taking a job as an engineer he had already earned the reputation of being someone who could really handle his own out there and uh up until april of 2003 nothing had really gone wrong in any of his daring adventures but before we fast forward to april of 2003 i'm going to tell you a little bit about what i've been doing for the past couple of years i want to stop just briefly at a snapshot of aaron's life in january of 2003 aaron had actually quit his job as an engineer at this point and he set out on a goal of climbing all of colorado's 14ers which are mountains that go over 4 000 feet in elevation a lot of people try to bag each peak you know peak bagging it's a thing a lot of you know what this is um but just in case you didn't that's what it is and the reason i want to stop at this point is to tell you that three months before i was able to get back to my dorm room i was able to get back to my the event that i'm going to be talking about shortly the event that made international headlines and later turned into a movie aaron and two of his buddies actually survived something pretty insane on one of their climbs that would be a category 5 avalanche which i'm not an expert on avalanches but that's pretty big right and the reason i mentioned this and what's really interesting about it is instead of that experience bringing aaron and his friends closer together actually created the opposite effect aaron's friends were pissed off at him i mean they felt like aaron was reckless with their safety like he didn't really care about the risks that he was taking with his life and their lives and they also claimed that aaron had pressured them into skiing on the mountain when the avalanche conditions and the avalanche risk was basically at its highest and i guess this beef between them was was so bad that those two friends stopped talking to aaron not just for like a few days or for a few months but forever um they literally never spoke again and i'm sure this hurt right and so at age 27 aaron did some reflecting something i think we all need to do every now and again and he swore to himself that he'd try to change his attitude and drop some of his ego despite how hurt he was he wanted to take this experience as a lesson and so over those next few months let's just say that yeah he did a lot of soul searching and uh that's where we found aaron on april 26 2003 since the avalanche earlier that year uh aaron had gone on a few solo adventures to try and clear his head and and to just just to think about his life right and it's important to mention that oftentimes he wouldn't tell anyone where he was going or hell he wouldn't even tell people that he was going out at all he'd basically just leave one morning and you know sometimes he'd reappear that night or he'd reappear after a few days or even a week and this time well it was supposed to be no different aaron had planned an afternoon solo canyoneering trek in blue john canyon which is a remote slot canyon in southeastern utah which is part of the very large and very desolate canyonlands national park his plan for this trip was very simple uh he would head out in the morning and he would return home by night fall but folks how do i say this uh aaron would not return by nightfall this wasn't just like a simple hike like i did when i was in canyon lands this is canyoneering which is something i have not done but it's very popular here in utah it's pretty much like a full sport it's definitely from my understanding a level above hiking you have to be prepared to like scramble down climb rappel up rappel down uh and even swim at times that's what i think anyways like i said i don't know if you've ever been to a canyon and you've never done it but it's intense right and so aaron with his new approach to risk he was decked out with all the gear that he thought he needed to be safe he had ropes he had a harness a first aid kit water some food obviously two burritos and some chocolate to be specific he had headphones he had a cd player and he had a camcorder to take some video of the canyon but that's not all he had he had one more piece of equipment on him that he would carry pretty much all the time he was out in the wilderness and that was his trusty multi-tool equipped with pliers scissors and a small knife one thing he did not have was a cell phone and i'm pretty sure there was in 2003 especially no reception where he was going anyways and also i was only seven years old at the time so did did people even have cell phones in 2003 you guys can let me know anyways um that morning the weather in blue john canyon was clear uh the sky was blue and aaron began his adventure he navigated the narrow passages of the canyon jamming out to rock music playing from his his cd player hopefully it was alice in chains i love them and he headed further and further out into this national park aaron had a pretty good sense of of where he was even though you know there was literally no one around him and of course going back to cell phones this was before the days of like easy gps navigation i mean obviously gps's existed back then i'm not sure if you had one but regardless at one point aaron laid his hands on the ground and he was able to take his eyes on a beautiful slot canyon that he knew he could descend into and that's what he did he continued his journey deeper down into this canyon and at one point he even wedged his body between two giant canyon walls and started slowly inching down you know using the walls for leverage essentially which makes me feel claustrophobic just saying that but on his way down he came across a large boulder that was wedged between the canyon walls which which is a pretty common obstacle for these kinds of climbs i guess and so aaron with his headphones on still hopefully listening to alice in chains tried to maneuver around the rock. He placed one hand on the canyon wall and the other on the boulder, but with those headphones on and, you know, nutshell or whatever blasting through his ears, maybe he didn't hear that when he put his hands on the boulder, it slightly shifted against the wall. If he had noticed this, Aaron would have most likely paused and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have ended up being the subject of this video, but he didn't notice this, and so he put his weight on the boulder, and in an absolutely horrifying instant, the boulder dislodged, sending it and Aaron himself into a free fall of 65 feet, which is about 20 meters. It sent him straight down, and of course, he panicked. He tried grabbing the canyon wall as he fell, but there was nothing that he could reach onto that would slow him down. He didn't know what to do. And instead of his hands finding the canyon wall, he would end up hitting the ground. And before he could get up and move so much as his right arm, that falling boulder found it. Well, it actually didn't just find his arm. It pinned his arm against the canyon wall, crushing it from the forearm up to his hand. Now, I want you to stop and imagine this for a second. You survive a fall from the same height as a seven-story building, only to be met with the most excruciating pain in the world. You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not alone. ever felt, aka your hand being crushed by an almost half-ton boulder. At first, Aaron went into shock and also anger at himself. I mean, he had literally spent the last few months thinking about if he was being too risky in the outdoors and, of course, feeling guilty about those lost friendships because of the decisions he'd made and the risks he'd taken in the outdoors. But now he was stuck, and he was paying the full price for that risk that he had taken. He was quite in a jam. And so, Aaron made a desperate attempt to try and free his arm, right? He pulled, he twisted, he strained himself and his body in any possible way that he could even think of. But despite all this effort, the boulder did not budge one bit. I mean, his arm was basically part of the rock at this point. It was immovable, and as a result, Aaron couldn't move either. And this is when the worst realization of all came in, of course, is that nobody knew where Aaron was. Again, it would be one thing if Aaron had left his plans with someone, and therefore, rescuers could zero in on him because they knew where he was going to be hiking, but he hadn't told anyone where he was going. No one was going to be coming for him. Now, if any of this story sounds familiar to some of you, that's because maybe you're starting to recall the famous movie that I mentioned in the beginning of the video. And if you have seen that movie and you do know this story, then, well, you know that things are about to get even worse. If that's even possible, which it is. So Aaron quickly began to kind of assess his situation after trying all these things. He's totally alone. He's miles from civilization, and he only has use of one arm, right? Because the other one's pinned. And so any survival tactics that he needs to do to keep himself alive are now going to just be even more difficult. And it gets worse because he had very limited supplies. Because as I'm sure you remember, he only packed for an afternoon adventure, right? He didn't have overnight gear with him. And as the sun was beginning to set, Aaron knew that the desert nights out in southern Utah can be brutally cold. He didn't have any warm weather gear. He was literally only wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He tried to like chip away at the boulder with his multi-tool knife, but that failed to even make like a dent on the rock. And it only made his knife duller. He tried to use his ropes and his harness to rig a pulley system to create even like a millimeter of space between the two. And he was able to do that. his arm and the boulder. But again, this was a failure. The boulder was just too big, too heavy, too perfectly wedged onto his arm. And then a very brief, unrealistic idea came through his head. An idea of how he could potentially free himself. A brutal, bloody, unimaginably painful idea. I think you might know where I'm going with this. But like, let's shake that off. I mean, that would be Aaron's worst case scenario, right? Aaron's worst case scenario, right? He wasn't going to resort to that. And so instead, he opted to just patiently, anxiously wait for a rescue. What else could he possibly do? The first night under the stars, Aaron was left with endless thoughts. And of course, with the agonizing pain in his right arm and his hand. And so to get his mind off of all this craziness and anxiety, Aaron made plans to conserve his one liter of water and his food. He started to get strategic. He kept his backpack on to shield himself from the cold as best he could. And he spent the night huddled against that canyon wall. By the time the sun rose the next morning, he was exhausted. He obviously didn't sleep since he was standing straight up the entire night. I mean, he couldn't even sit down, right? And he knew that he was going to be there for at least another day, unless, you know, someone miraculously figured out that he was missing and a rescue team was dispatched, which they didn't, obviously. And they didn't. They weren't. And so Aaron, being an engineer, came up with one quick solution to his standing problem. He rigged his harness to suspend himself and take the weight off of his legs, essentially creating a seat. And this allowed him to like, kind of lean back, even though he could only do this in like 20 minute intervals because of how the harness reduced blood flow to his legs. This was still a win, right? I mean, his certainly his first win since this situation started. The next few days went kind of like this for Aaron. A few tiny wins as he figured out how to survive and keep his odds of rescue above 0%, but mostly a lot of pain and hopelessness. He continued to chip away at the boulder and to try to pry his arm free, but his efforts were always fruitless. The burritos and the chocolate that he had taken with him obviously didn't last very long. His water supply, though carefully rationed, was diminishing fast. In the long days and the cold nights were starting to cause him not only physical stress, but severe mental stress. I mean, can you imagine this? The only thing that he had that wasn't a total bummer for Aaron was his camcorder, which he used to document his experience, tell stories, and even leave messages for his loved ones. I don't know how much this helped, but it at least kept him a little bit entertained. But towards the end of day four, you know, we're now 96 hours stuck at this point and no sign of a rescue team. Aaron looked at his arm and a new fear entered his mind. His arm was quickly losing circulation. I mean, it wasn't just swelling. It was like turning black and becoming a source of intense, throbbing agony. The tissue is dying. And he knew what that meant. Infection. Infection was now a looming threat. And with it came the potential for sepsis and even death, which it's not like starvation or dehydration are pleasant ways to go either. But from my limited knowledge, sepsis is probably worse. The canyons, which used to be this place of comfort and soul searching for Aaron throughout his life, had now essentially become his tomb. And so he recorded a final video message on his camcorder to say goodbye to his family. And acknowledge the love that he had for all of them. I mean, you got to remember, he had spent most of his time stuck here thinking about them and about, of course, his own life. Things like what he had accomplished, his regrets. I'm sure he thought about that avalanche, the 14ers that he wouldn't be able to climb now. And I'm sure he thought about his friends and those former friends who he had kind of fallen out with. I mean, would they even care if he died? Should he have let someone know that he had died? Why was there no one out there searching for him? All these questions are running through his head. During some moments, he even considered ending his own life, you know, before he met an even worse and more painful end. I mean, this was all just, just too much. But instead of his brain staying on all of those thoughts long term, delirium ended up kicking in. A combination of little water and food, total exhaustion, and of course, the relentless pain of his arm. Well, all of this stuff combined and Aaron started to hallucinate. One of these hallucinations was particularly powerful. Aaron had this vision of a little boy, not just any little boy, by the way, but a child who he felt was his future son. And in this moment, a switch kind of flipped inside of his head. He realized that the hallucination was of a future that he desperately wanted to live to see. Maybe this was the kind of thinking that Aaron's former friends had been wanting to live to see. In order to take less risks in his life. This hallucination, this vision could not have come at a better time because now Aaron's mind was fighting for survival, despite the fact that his body was failing him. By the end of day five, the situation was beyond dire. His water was now completely gone. And so he was drinking his own urine, which is generally a bad idea, not just because it's gross, but because I guess it could be a bad idea. And so he was drinking his own urine, which is generally a bad idea, not just because it's gross, but because it could potentially poison your liver. I don't know. Don't do that. His arm of course was just dead weight at this point. It was decomposed. decomposing and it was likely already infected. He was hypothermic after spending five nights braving the elements with no warm gear. He knew with absolute certainty that he was going to die in that canyon within just a day or two if he didn't do something drastic. All attempts to free himself from the boulder had failed. He had tried every conventional option, but there was one more option that he had not tried yet. It was amputation. And again, he had been thinking about this a little bit, you know, about like how he would do it. He had been kind of testing the knife against his skin, but now he knew that it was the only chance he had. With no sign of a rescue team, he was gonna have to get himself out of this canyon. And so he thought about it some more and eventually he knew what needed to be done and he knew how he was gonna do it. But the act itself, I mean, I don't think is going to be prepared for that. So I don't always do this. Maybe I should more often. Maybe I shouldn't. I don't know. But I'm going to give you a warning now. I'm going to prepare all of you for a few minutes of this story that I'm sure will go down as the most painful of Aaron's life. And I feel like now is the right time to tell you that this next part also happens to be the climax of the scene of the movie that I've been telling you about, about this guy, which if you haven't guessed by now is none other than 127 hours. Now, this movie scene literally, I think, is going to be the most painful scene that I've ever seen in a movie. And I feel like it's going to be the most painful scene that I've ever seen in a movie. But there's no easy way to say this. It's going to be a little graphic. Okay. You've been warned. So Aaron assessed his tools and his best option was the small blade on his multi-tool knife, which he sharpened on a nearby rock. But folks, that was the simple part. The rest of this was essentially going to be a very painful engineering problem because he needed to figure out a way to not only cut through his arm at the right angle, breaking the nerves and the tissue, but he also needed to figure out how to get through the bone. And so just before he started breaking skin, he really needed to figure out how to get through the bone. And so just before that, he realized that the knife was going to be too dull to break into the bone and the thick muscles, you know, in his arm. And this next moment, this huge decision is where Aaron's story goes beyond a mere survival tale and becomes a testament to the absolute limits of human endurance. His little knife had no chance of cutting through literal bone, right? And so he was going to have to do that part himself. He created a vice using the wall of the canyon, and he actually tried to break through the bone. And so he was going to have to do that part to break the bones of his forearm. And I mean, this is just crazy, right? Can you imagine like purposely bending your arm so far back that your bones shattered? I mean, theoretically, this would hurt a little bit less for Aaron because, you know, his nerves were already dead in that area and he had lost a lot of blood flow to his hand and his forearm. But that theory of it being less painful proved to not be true. This was absolutely excruciating for Aaron. I mean, muscle tearing, nerves tearing until finally Aaron, two snaps as his forearm folded. He sighed and then he strangely smiled and he smiled because in a sick, twisted way, this was actually the first step towards his freedom, but it wasn't over yet. Now that his forearm bones were pre-sliced, we'll say Aaron's knife would be able to do the rest of the work. He began the process of self-amputation. He started to cut through all and every time he got through one, by the way, it felt like he was being electrocuted. He tried to like disassociate from this experience, pretending like he was slicing up some animal that wasn't him. He stayed focused on the task, his mind fixed on one goal, which was to escape. I'm going over this relatively quickly, but folks, this took him over an hour, over an hour of this unimaginable pain. I mean, looking, I don't even need to, describe it anymore. Um, he was getting methodical about things and eventually he even put the knife away and switched to his multi-tool pliers and severed the final thick nerves and tendons. He clenched those pliers and suddenly his body fell backwards and he kind of like looked up and he saw that his right arm was still attached to the rock, um, which is brutal. But after over five days of being trapped in this moment, Aaron was free. The immediate aftermath was a flood of relief. Um, but that was quickly followed by panic. And that's because Aaron had to get out of that Canyon quickly and get some real medical help. Obviously he tied up his wound using his camelback tube from his hydration pack. And he began hiking through the narrows of the Canyon, trying to go towards the sunlight that he saw just as he thought that he had made it through a pocket of open air. He kind of looked down and, um, he was like, I don't know, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't. Now, this, to me, is where Aaron's lifelong dedication to the outdoors and his skills and abilities really came into play. Because very few people could have survived what Aaron already had up to this point. And I don't know anyone, anyone on earth, certainly not myself, who could then, after going through all of that, rappel down a 65-foot sheer rock face with one hand on the arm, while the other one was actively bleeding out. That's insane, right? But it was his only option. And so, with his arm in a makeshift tourniquet and actively losing blood, still severely dehydrated and weakened from basically no food for five days, Aaron threw his rope down and started getting himself down this cliff. He used his new, uh, stump, for lack of a better words, to kind of keep himself balanced. And he used his other arm to slowly rappel down. His feet were literally shaking every time they hit the face of the cliff, you know, since his legs were basically jelly at this point, but somehow they kept him stable and he, he trusted his harness and the ropes. I feel like the term locked in is something that a lot of people say right now, you know, like I've been playing a lot of pickleball recently and I'm always like, all right, I got to lock in for this serve. Um, this is basically like a brand new definition of locked in. I mean, Aaron was locked in. There's no denying that. I don't want to see any comments saying that he wasn't, uh, and somehow some way he ended up reaching the ground. And when he looked up at what he had just conquered, I'm sure at this moment, he probably felt like a bad-ass and deservingly. So, so Aaron made it down this cliff, but he still had many miles of terrain to cover before he could get help. And so he kind of stumbled through blue John Canyon, just, just praying that he would see someone, anyone, right. Anyone who could possibly help him. But after over an hour of wandering, the clock, was, was ticking, right? Uh, this was in the middle of the day. And so the sun was blaring. And once again, just in case you forgot, Aaron was severely dehydrated, uh, losing a lot of blood. And now his vision was starting to get blurry. He was having to take a ton of breaks just to rest, just to gather up enough strength to continue. And so now he was starting to worry that he wasn't moving fast enough to get to the main road. And of course, uh, this is when a new awful thought began to enter his mind. Was he going through all of this? Aaron started screaming for help just in case those figures happened to be people. He wasn't even really sure. And sure enough, this family of three from the Netherlands who were probably, uh, very confused, ran up to Aaron and offered him some water. Aaron was able to get a few words out about what happened. Um, the, the family obviously saw him bleeding a lot. Uh, but instead of freaking out, the family leaped into action and they helped him get into their truck and they drove him to a main road as Aaron kind of floated in and out of consciousness in this car. He heard the sounds of air being cut through by giant blades. Um, but he didn't know what was going on. He wasn't hallucinating this time. It turns out that his friends from Aspen who were concerned that they hadn't heard from him in a few days had in fact alerted the authorities that he was missing and helicopters have been dispatched to the area in order to try to find him. Aaron's rescuers, this family flagged down the helicopter and Aaron was airlifted to a hospital in grand junction, Colorado. He may have been in critical condition, but he was still alive. I mean, isn't that just insane? They were actually able to stabilize him at the hospital. And that's when his recovery began. It was brutal. You know, physically he had to heal from the amputation and all the trauma to his entire system. Mentally, he had to process what the hell had just happened. The near death experience, multiple surgeries, prosthetics. And once all that was done, he had to process, you know, adapting to life with only one hand. On Aaron's 28th birthday, he would end up returning to Blue John Canyon with a present that he had been given. That was the ashes of his right arm, which had been recovered from the boulder and ultimately cremated. Instead of keeping these ashes as a testament to his survival, Aaron would go on to spread the ashes in the area around where he was trapped, which he feels is where the ashes belong. Now, when all of this came out, the world, and I literally mean the world, was captivated by Aaron's story. His memoir, which was called Between a Rock and a Hard Place, which I'll link below, was published in 2004. It became a bestseller, and rightfully so. It's an amazing book, and I'd recommend you guys read it one more time. Click that link. The book actually goes into a lot of details of other wilderness stories that Aaron encountered before this particular incident, including the avalanche story that I told you about. And folks, Aaron's story doesn't end with his rescue and his recovery from this incident. He continued to pursue his love for the outdoors, climbing, hiking, skiing, you know. He became the first person to ascend all of Colorado's 14ers solo in the winter. And while continuing to do more badass outdoor stuff, Aaron became an advocate for wilderness safety, emphasizing the importance of telling someone your plans before you leave, and of course, carrying the proper gear. And then, as we all know, in 2010, the movie 127 Hours came out, which tells a pretty thrilling version of Aaron's story. And you know, this is a movie, and so, of course, the directors and producers took some creative liberties, we'll say. But Aaron approved of this, and he was even at the premiere of the movie. Apparently, Aaron even allowed the director of the movie, which was also the star of the movie, James Franco, to watch all of the tapes that he recorded. And so, he was able to do that. And so, while he was stuck in Blue John Canyon. Oh, and do you remember the hallucination that Aaron had while he was in the canyon? The one that inspired him to fight for his life? The one with that little boy? Well, the same year that the movie came out, 2010, is really when the best part of Aaron's story happened. He had a son. And a few years later, he had a daughter. At this point, Aaron's about to turn 50 and is living out his dream of being a father. A dream that was born out of one of the most gruesome, death-defying situations of all time. Timberland Pro knows that NASCAR starts long before the green flag waves. Because behind every race are the doers. The people who show up to the track early and stay long after the race ends. And that's who Timberland Pro is built for. Durable, comfortable, and professional. These boots perform as hard as you do, on the job and off it. Real work, real people, real craft. Visit TimberlandPro.com and discover products that help workers perform at their best.