After approximately five and a half days in the canyon, he was free.
He has said, in reporting from the period, that he was “so happy to be taking action” — a statement that captures something essential about both his temperament and the psychological state he had reached. The action itself was not something he has described in terms of courage or heroism. He has described it as the only available option once he had fully assessed his situation, and as something he undertook not in defiance of fear but with the clarity that comes from having already accepted the worst.
He also said, in accounts from shortly after the rescue, that in the moment of regaining mobility, “all the desires, joys, and euphorias of a future life came rushing into me.” The contrast between the controlled farewell messages he had recorded during the preceding days and this eruption of forward-oriented feeling is itself a kind of testimony about what survival does to a person who had, at one point, genuinely made his peace with dying.
He carved two final words into the canyon wall before leaving. Reports indicate they said “good luck now.” Then he climbed toward the light.
## The Exit: Rappel, Hike, and a Dutch Family
What Aron Ralston did immediately after freeing himself would, in most circumstances, be considered a significant physical achievement on its own terms. He had just spent five-plus days in a slot canyon, severely dehydrated and nutritionally depleted, with a dying arm. He had lost a significant amount of blood during the amputation. He was not, by any measure, in a condition suited to strenuous physical exertion.