Aron: One Year Later

In the year since the former Intel engineer spent six days trapped in a remote canyon, he has joked with David Letterman, been named a GQ Man of the Year and led Tom Brokaw back to the scene of his amputation on his 28th birthday.
He also has learned to play the piano one-handed, climbed two more Fourteeners solo and returned to skiing, mountain climbing and mountain biking.
What's next? He's signed up to run the Leadville 100, a 100-mile race in August beginning and ending in Leadville, and has a book tentatively titled Between a Rock and a Hard Place due out in September.
On April 29, he will speak at a breakfast fund-raiser for Warren Village in honor of his mom, Donna.
That speech is the result of something he learned in the canyon.
"One of the biggest things I learned is about what I really cared about and what motivates me," Ralston told Karissa Frolov, 11. "I thought a lot about my parents, I thought a lot about my sister, I thought a lot about my friends.
"I think that's what I learned about my life: what I really care about and the power that has when you get in trouble."
There are some things Ralston has yet to conquer - playing guitar and whitewater kayaking, are two of them. He has yet to find prosthetics that will allow him to do either.
But given everything he's gone through, though, he's sure he will.
"So far, I've found a way to do everything I want to do," Ralston said.
"A year ago, if you had asked me, I don't think I would have told you I could have done it."
Go online
• For more information about Aron Ralston's fund-raising speech for Warren Village, log on to http://www.warrenvillage.org

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