In early September, a 64-year-old North Carolina man named Amos Wayne Richards hiked into Utah’s Lower Blue John Canyon. As Richards descended to the canyon floor, he slipped and fell ten feet, breaking his left leg and dislocating his right shoulder. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going, and the only food he had with him was a couple of energy bars. Three days later, a National Park Service patrol found Richards’s car. The next morning, a helicopter crew spotted Richards roughly four miles from the site of his fall. He had spent three days crawling across the desert.
Sound familiar? It should. Blue John is, of course, the canyon where Aron Ralston was trapped in 2003 by a falling rock and forced to amputate his arm. Except for Ralston himself, Utah officials hadn’t performed a single rescue in Blue John or the surrounding canyons between 1998 and 2005. But after Ralston published a book about his ordeal in late 2004, and especially since last January’s release of 127 Hours, starring James Franco as Ralston, the canyon has seen a jump in rescues. Since June 2005, more than two dozen hikers have been reported missing in or near Blue John. Most of them, like Richards, were trying to retrace Ralston’s route.
“I saw that movie about the guy that got his arm cut off, and I started reading about slot canyons,” Richards says. “That movie really got me excited.”
In perhaps the most dramatic post-Ralston epic, Louis Cicotello, a 70-year-old college professor and an experienced climber, fell to his death in nearby No Man’s Canyon in March, leaving his 57-year-old brother stranded on a ledge for 145 hours, nearly a day longer than Ralston was pinned in 2003.
Blue John is 250 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and a two-hour drive from the nearest town. To reach the lower narrows, where Ralston got stuck, requires a ten-mile hike over unforgiving terrain. Horseshoe Canyon to the north, in Canyonlands National Park, gets a fair number of visitors, but Blue John is just outside park boundaries and is one of dozens of slot formations in the area. Until 2010, it was known only to serious canyoneers and people who’d read Ralston’s memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place. “There’s nothing special about this canyon other than it’s in the middle of nowhere,” says Wayne County sheriff Kurt Taylor.
The copycat-accident phenomenon isn’t without precedent. Rescuers in Alaska saw a similar trend after the 2007 release of Into the Wild, the movie based on the Jon Krakauer book about Christopher McCandless’s death at an abandoned school bus near Denali National Park. Each summer since the film Into the Wild premiered, rescuers have recovered at least half a dozen lost hikers on McCandless pilgrimages, says former Denali Borough Emergency Services director Rusty Lasell. Not surprisingly, the uptick of rescues in and around Blue John has officials concerned. Bureau of Land Management recreation planner Myron Jeffs was initially reluctant to speak about the canyon at all, fearing that additional media attention would attract a new crop of unprepared visitors. “Another story will just bring more people out after they read it,” he said. And both Park Service and Wayne County officials expressed frustration at 127 Hours’ depiction of a lagoon deep within Blue John: there isn’t one, and the embellishment makes the canyon look far more inviting than it really is.
“I think the film has done a disservice to hikers and climbers and the public by glorifying the event,” Taylor says. “Everybody wants to go see that blue lagoon, thinking it’s part of Blue John Canyon.”
Ralston is conflicted. “I do feel a little bit responsible for enticing people to go who get in over their heads,” he says. “But the canyon is self-limiting in terms of who’s going to commit to doing it, and I’m not going to discourage people from going out there. I understand why they’re there in the first place.”
Comments
Sounds like Louis Cicotello was an experienced canyoneer and climber and not a Ralston copycat. Accidents happen. It is misleading to force a link between the this event and the premise of the article.
Flag ThisUntil they become celebrity mouthpieces for the Wilderness movement who condescendingly address those holding disparate viewpoints as "not understanding the issues" they're not real copycats.
Flag ThisIn reply to SCIURUS: Yes, Louis Cicotello was an experienced climber. And yes, he was no Ralston copycat. And how do I know? I was there. I'm the brother who survived 145 hours. I can assure you and anyone else that my brother and me had no intention to "out Ralston-Ralston" when we decided to hike the canyon. It's disgraceful that a link was asserted between the events in No Mans Canyon and the author's premise. And yes, accidents happen. In reply to WILDERNESSB: I expect someday to share with the public my story of survival to educate and inspire audiences, not to gain any cheap celebrity status as a mouthpiece for any organization.
Flag ThisDavid, thanks for commenting. The point we were trying to make wasn't that everyone who goes exploring in or around Blue John is trying to replicate Ralston's ordeal. Rather, because of 127 Hours' popularity, the area has seen a huge increase in visitors, and, more important, a surge in lost hikers. It's also worth noting that when Ralston became trapped, he had years of experience in the backcountry. The canyons in this area are simply dangerous, even to the best, most experienced climbers. That doesn't mean that you or Louis were trying to out-do Ralston, and my understanding is that you and Louis avoided many of the mistakes that got Ralston in trouble. Still, I'm not sure the link between Louis's death and Ralston's experience is disgraceful. Condolences on your loss. By all accounts, Louis was a fine climber and a wonderful man. —Peter
Flag ThisMy couisn Louis was one of the most careful people ever, this carried over into his love of the outdoors and the sport that led to his death. So Aaron Ralston, made some mistakes and ended up cutting off his own arm Maybe Aaron would like to donate some of the money he collected from the movie to the Wayne County Search and Rescue Unit, who did a terrific job of getting David off the cliff and extracating Louis's body, if he feels "conflicted". So Mr. Richards thought that Ralston accident was a "freak accident" He went into the canyon, without anyone knowing where he was going, and a couple of energy bars. Way to prepare there, Boy Scout.
Flag ThisMy couisn Louis was one of the most careful people ever, this carried over into his love of the outdoors and the sport that led to his death. So Aaron Ralston, made some mistakes and ended up cutting off his own arm Maybe Aaron would like to donate some of the money he collected from the movie to the Wayne County Search and Rescue Unit, who did a terrific job of getting David off the cliff and extracating Louis's body, if he feels "conflicted". So Mr. Richards thought that Ralston accident was a "freak accident" He went into the canyon, without anyone knowing where he was going, and a couple of energy bars. Way to prepare there, Boy Scout.
Flag ThisI was surprised to see Louis Cicotello’s name mentioned in your article “Tourist Trap.” Louis and I canyoneered together from 1999 until his death this spring in No Man’s (I was not on that trip). Together we went through more than sixty canyons over the years (including Blue John twice, in 2001 and 2004), and he went through another thirty canyons with others. Suggesting that he was either a tourist canyoneer or a copy-cat canyoneer is about as wrong-headed as can be. At his death, he had probably done more than 800 rappels in a forty year climbing and twelve year canyoneering career; moreover, he was utterly expert and meticulous when setting anchors. No one knows what happened in No Man’s, but I do know that he was not an incompetent noob, much less an incompetent copy-cat noob.
Flag ThisI think we should not call him a copy-cat, moving in such pattern is extremely hard. Thanks Birthday Wishes
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