Just finished reading Between a Rock and a Hard Place
When I first heard the story, I thought it was fascinating. I didn't get around to buying the book until I saw it one day at Chamblin's. I should have paid attention to some of the reviews at Amazon. This review nailed the problem with the book. I could have handled a couple of the back stories to put the ordeal in context, but Ralston went WAAAAY over the top. The guy who wrote the above review also explains why it is hard to sympathize with Ralston:
Witness: 1) Aron camps in the Grand Tetons despite initially finding an aggressive black bear at his camp site. Aron spends the night anyway. The bear subsequently stalks Aron through waist-deep snow. Aron narrowly misses becoming a surrounding-area footnote in the book "Death In Yellowstone." 2) Aron foolishly leaps into Colorado River without a lifejacket, narrowly misses becoming a footnote in the book "Death in Grand Canyon" 3) Aron convinces two reluctant others to follow him into an slide zone. After a huge avalanche, one of the two reluctant others gets to experience death in Colorado, requiring rescue breaths to restart his life. Aron uses it as fodder in his book. 4) Two months later Aron places himself between a rock and a hard place, narrowly escaping death in Utah.
I have added the Dateline special DVD to my queue at Netflix. The entrapment and rescue portion of the book was very interesting, and apparently the DVD does a great job of presenting that story without all of the gratuitous filler found in the book.