Mountaineering rope the long dark series#

In the world of mountaineering, the relationship between climbing partners is sacred. Simpson would never forget looking at Yates and seeing in his eyes his resolve to help him.

Mountaineering rope the long dark series#

This moment would lead to a series of events that would change his life. Pragmatic and a touch phlegmatic, Yates offered to help. At that moment, they were condemned to perish together or wait for a miracle to be saved.

Simpson would have died and Yates would have survived. Yates could have left Simpson up there he could have promised to return with help and flee to save his life. They were not friends, just climbing partners by chance the relationship was only made to quench their thirst for adventure. In their rush, Simpson slipped, fell and broke a tibia: staying alive no longer depended on him, but rather the empathy of Yates. What should be done with the corpses of climbers in the Himalayas? When they reached the summit, the bad weather that had held them so much during the ascent, closed in on them severely, turning their descent down the northernmost arГЄte into more of a high-stakes getaway than a simple return to civilization. With more courage than hands-on experience, the two made a first ascent of the West Face of Siula Grande mountain (6,334 meters) via an extremely technical route. Joe Simpson, the elder climber, was 25 years old, and his partner Simon Yates was just 22.

In 1985, two young British climbers who knew each other by sight decided to climb the Peruvian Andes. With or without spoilers (there are some), the reason why his story deserves to be read is that, by the end of it, the reader will inexorably be faced with many questions вЂ“ the answers to which they will not be able to hide from. No piece of fiction can compete with the real-life drama of the mountain adventure shared by Joe Simpson in his book Touching the Void.