distribution of private information to non-government parties.)
Elliott understood their position but wanted to leave the issue open so that he might call back with some higher authority. He thanked the rangers for considering his request and hung up, debating whether to have the Aspen police call the Talkeetma station. First, though, he wanted to check in with Brion. Time was slipping by, but in the hour since they’d spoken, Brion had hit pay dirt. “Don’t worry about searching anymore. I found Aron’s folder in his locker, where I should have looked in the first place. Anyway, I’ve got their information.” On the printouts of e-mails to my teammates, he had found the addresses he needed. At twelve minutes before eleven, Brion had sent an e- mail to Team Green Chili Winds, alerting them to my absence and asking for information.
From: Brion After
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 10:48 A.M.
To: Janet Lightburn, Bill Geist, Jason Halladay, David Shaw
Subject: Looking for Aron Ralston
Hello,
I am Aron’s manager at the Ute Mountaineer in Aspen Co., and surprisingly he has not arrived to work in the last 2 days. We are getting very concerned about his well being, and I am wondering if any of you would know where he may be, or can give me any information on his most recent trip. None of his friends/roommates are sure where he went, but we do think he went to Utah on April 24th or 25th. Possibly to meet some of you for Denali training. If you have any information on Aron, please Email me back at this address. Or you can call me at the Ute. We have contacted the Police, and his family, as Aron is usually very diligent on arriving on time and keeping in touch with us and his friends.
Best regards,
Brion After
At that point, although he had done some excellent sleuthing, Brion was getting ready to leave for Australia for a few weeks’ holiday and was a little behind in wrapping up business at the shop. He needed to pass the baton to someone who would be around, so he circuitously asked Elliott for backup: “What are you doing today?”
Sensing the loaded question, Elliott said, “Uhh, I was cleaning out Leona’s room, getting ready to start moving my stuff in, unpacking, like that. You need me to do something else? I’m glad to help.”
“Well, yeah. I’m starting to get e-mails back, and I’m getting swamped. I’m supposed to be leaving tomorrow for two weeks. Would you be able to come in to the shop and make some calls and watch for e-mails?”
“Sure thing. I was going to come in anyway and bug you some more about giving me a job. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
A few minutes before eleven-thirty A.M., Brion was on the phone calling my mom. His call interrupted my mom and Michelle’s efforts to crack my password protection. My mom was happy to hear back about the progress Brion had made with the police and the e-mail to my Denali teammates. She spoke with him about the additional data the police needed while she continued to hack away. Brion asked if my mom had my license-plate information. She went downstairs to the drawer where she had tucked half a sheet of white paper on which she’d written the make, model, year, and license number of my pickup truck. She had asked me for the vehicle description when I was home at Christmas in 2000, prior to a winter solo fourteener climb, in case she needed it in an emergency. I had hastily told her the vehicle information from memory, so she unknowingly passed along to Brion an error I’d made.
As my mom finished confirming the truck description and license, she hit enter on the most recent attempt to guess the answer to my “secret question” and gave a gasp when the computer screen changed for the first time in a half hour. Michelle and my mom shouted in unison, “We got it! We got it!” and hugged each other.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Brion asked when my mom came back on the line.
“We’ve been trying to get into Aron’s e-mail for the past hour. We just figured out how to change his password. We’re going to read his mail and see if there’s anything about where he went.”
Brion could hear the pick-me-up effect that the success had on my mom. “Are you into his account now?” he inquired.
Scanning through the most recent e-mails from my friends, my mom explained, “Yes, we’re looking at his in box. If we don’t find anything in his messages, would you be able to send a big e-mail to all his friends and find out what they know?”
“Sure, that’s a great idea,” Brion replied. My mom gave Brion the new password, and they agreed he would carry out the mass e-mailing while she and Michelle read through the two dozen e-mails I’d received since I had last checked my messages on Wednesday the week before. After hanging up, Brion immediately phoned Adam Crider over at the Aspen Police Department to relay the truck description and license number.
After my mom had transferred the password to Brion, Michelle had to leave to go home and pack for a trip with her husband. Alone again just before noon, my mom called my sister in Lubbock, who was working on her senior thesis for the Honors College at Texas Tech. Her voice raw from the crying and upheaval of the past two hours, my mom spoke softly: “Sonja, I just found out this morning that your brother is two days overdue for work. Do you have any idea where he was headed or what he was doing?”
Sonja was calm, but she didn’t have much information on my recent travels, since we hadn’t spoken in a couple of weeks. “I have no idea where he’s at. I’m sorry, Mom. Are you OK? Do you want me to come home?”
“No, stay there and finish your paper. I’ll let you know what happens. Try not to let it distract you.”
Despite my mom’s wishes, life would not go on without distraction for either her or my sister. Even though Elliott was at the helm of the e-mail search, passing leads along to the Aspen police, who were fully engaged once Brion phoned in my vehicle information, my mom could not go back to working without becoming fraught over what might have happened to me.
Minutes after twelve o’clock, Elliott arrived at the Ute, leaning his silver road bike against the bike rack in front of the store. Elliott rarely drove around town, as he could usually bike to the Aspen core in less time than he could drive and find a parking spot. After Elliott jogged the stairs up to the office, Brion handed him the ’03 Denali folder and summarized his most recent activities. “Here’s the file of people he’s going to Denali with. I’ve been getting replies from a few of them, and I’ve talked with one of them, Jason Halladay. His number’s on a piece of paper in the folder. Aron’s mom’s number is there, too. Also, this is his e-mail address and password. His mom wants us to send an e-mail to everyone in his address book.” Brion was going full speed, and yet he was barely keeping his head together in the midst of the most hectic firestorm he’d ever experienced.
“Who’s the contact at the police?” Elliott asked.
“Oh yeah. I’ve talked to them a couple times. Here’s the number of the guy over there, uh, Adam.”
“What have you told them?” Elliott was thorough and wanted to know everything that everyone involved knew.
Brion gave him a pass-down of the information he’d told Adam up to that time. Elliott sat down at Brion’s cluttered desk and pondered what he was going to do next while Brion walked through the shop to check on the shorthanded staff.
Amid the stack of e-mail printouts Brion had made that morning and handed to Elliott was the response from Jason Halladay. Jason had replied fifteen minutes after Brion’s initial e-mail, clarifying about our May 1-4 Denali training trip. At 11:03 A.M., he had written, “We have not heard from him since last week. The last e-mail I have from Aron here at work is from April 22 but he did not mention his upcoming plans.” Jason was going back to his town house for lunch and had typed out, “I may have a more recent correspondence from him at home and I will check on that as soon as I get home.” Just over a half hour later, Jason had sent in another message, with excerpts from the seminal e-mail I’d written to him in January, inviting him to join me for any of a slew of slot canyons, as well as the climbing expedition to Denali. Sitting at Brion’s desk, Elliott read this e-mail:
From: Jason Halladay
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 11:40 A.M.
To: Brion After
Subject: RE: Looking for Aron Ralston
Brion,
Hello again. I checked my home e-mail and last I heard from Aron was April 23rd reporting on his trip on Quandary. He didn’t mention plans for the upcoming weekends but earlier this year he mentioned the following canyons as trips he’d like to do in Utah:
