A constant reminder is needed when reading
this book that it is non-fiction as otherwise the tale would consistently fail
the ‘as if’ test.
For mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates
the attraction of the 21,000 ft. Siula Grand peak in the Peruvian Andes was its
isolation and the consequent knowledge that there they could rely only on each
other. No-one waiting in an Alpine
village down the hill, no mountain rescue poised to help, at their camp only a
hiker they had picked up in Lima, along for the walk not the climb; and of
course in 1985 no mobile phones.
After some acclimatisation and
reconnaissance climbs Joe and Simon set off for the unclimbed west face of the
mountain. The ascent is full of
challenges – snow, wind, altitude, ice, rockfalls, difficult terrain – but
nothing unexpected, nothing unprepared for.
It is the descent that goes wrong, terribly wrong.
Joe has a fall, is badly injured and Simon’s
efforts to get him down are truly heroic. But bad goes to worse and when you are being
pulled out of a melting snow seat by the crippled man you are roped to, and he
is hanging over a yawning crevasse 150 feet below you, what do you do?
The moral dilemma is central to the book;
its resolution and outcome is astonishing.
Time and again the author’s name on the cover has to be checked as the
odds of his survival lengthen, page by page, from unlikely to impossible.
There are climbing terms used but there is
no need to be a climber to appreciate the writing. The emotions are raw but the prose is
polished; and even if it were otherwise the resilience of the man would deserve
a reading.
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