Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death.
That’s how the back cover reads of one of the latest books I finished, Touching The Void. The 
book is written from both the perspective of Simpson & Yates, intertwining the emotions & internal battles each man endured on the mountain following their moment of separation. It’s a gripping tale of adventure, fear, loneliness & the will to never give up.
Following the moment when Yates cut the rope which joined he & Simpson, the real test began. Simpson had fallen into a seemingly bottomless crevasse. Amazingly, he’d landed on a small ledge. Lying in a broken & twisted pile of human wreckage, he managed to lower himself further into the crevasse, reaching a snow shelf, which he used to climb out of the crevasse. The following days found him crawling & dragging himself back to the base camp from where he & Yates had started. Out of food & water, Simpson pushed his body to the brink of exhaustion & death, reaching base camp only hours before Yates left for home.
I thought this book was well written & hard to put down. Joe Simpson describes his ordeal in such a way that puts you in his predicament. Whether or not you’re a climber, you will enjoy this book. The book has also been made into a filmed docudrama. Interviews of Simpson & Yates narrate their tale, as it’s re-enacted on the same mountain that almost took their lives. Here’s a clip of the film from Youtube below.
~Steve, The Pilgrim.
