Joe Simpson

Touching the void

La morte sospesa

When mountain climber Simon Yates cut the rope and sent his friend and climbing partner Joe Simpson plummeting to an ordeal few mountaineers can have contemplated, the outcome was totally unpredictable. That Simpson survived his experience on Peru's Siula Grande is a revelation of the power of the human spirit to overcome fear, pain and deprivation of almost unimaginable intensity. He did not expect to live it all over again - more than once. The first test was to write his award-winning account of the ordeal in Touching the Void. That meant dragging the terrifying experience out of the deeper shadows of his memory. Next, another fall in the Himalaya crippled and almost broke him. He felt forced to test his nerve again, and struggled on crutches to 20,000 feet on Pumori, near Everest. On his descent he heard that a young, first-time climber had been killed by a chance rockfall. What sense could he make now of this game of ghosts that had claimed the lives of so many of his friends over the years he had been climbing, while he had survived so many events that should have meant certain death? In an attempt to find catharsis for his confused emotions he wrote this e xtraordinary memoir, revealing his early ife and his fifteen years of climbing on three continents, before and after the life-changing experience of Siula Grande. His gripping story recounts, with total honesty, experiences that range from hilarious to poignant to nearly unbelievable. Here are the signposts that have directed him since childhood to measure fear and embrace the unknown. He wonders about the luck or the choices along the way that have caused the loss of so many climbing friends: "Ghosts everywhere I look, all I see are ghosts - or perhaps I am the ghost, a spectre of my past, standing in the rubble of my present, anxiously awaiting the future." This is a compelling work of adventure and introspection that will hold both moutaineers and armchair travelers spellbound.

This Game of Ghosts

A mixture of adventure story and mysticism, featuring two young men who go climbing in the Himalayas near the source of the sacred Ganges, searching for the meaning of life and death through water. Joe Simpson is the author of the mountaineering book, Touching the Void.

The Water People

Joe Simpson, with just his partner Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured, crawling through the snowstorm in a delirium. Far from causing Joe's death, Simon had paradoxically saved his friend's life. What happened, and how they dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted when Simon was forced into the appalling decision to cut the rope, makes not only an epic of survival but a compelling testament of friendship.

Touching the Void

Sturz Ins Leere

Nel giugno 1985, due alpinisti britannici, il venticinquenne Joe Simpson e il suo compagno di cordata, Simon Yates, hanno appena raggiunto la vetta del Siula Grande (6536 metri) nelle Ande peruviane, salendo per la prima volta la parete Ovest. Colti, sulla cima, da una violenta bufera, i due scendono lungo una ripida parete innevata, ma Simpson perde un appoggio e precipita su una roccia rompendosi una gamba. Yates cerca di calarlo per seracchi di ghiaccio con laboriose manovre di corda. Nonostante il gelo e l'oscurità tutto sembra procedere fino a quando non accade l'imprevisto: la parete è interrotta da uno strapiombo sotto il quale Joe si trova appeso, inerme. Simon non riesce a issarlo e rischia di venire trascinato anche lui nel vuoto. Compie l'unico gesto possibile: allo stremo delle forze, recide la corda che lo unisce al compagno, abbandonandolo. Joe cade nel vuoto ma non muore. I tre giorni successivi sono un calvario per entrambi gli alpinisti: Yates torna a fatica al campo base consumato dal dolore, certo di aver causato la morte del compagno. Simpson, sopravvissuto a stento, si trova intrappolato in un crepaccio, ferito, con un principio di congelamento agli arti, senza nulla da mangiare. Eppure, facendo appello a tutte le risorse fisiche e mentali, riesce a raggiungere miracolosamente il campo base dove ritrova il compagno. Questo libro racconta come i due alpinisti siano riusciti a superare quei giorni strazianti: è un racconto epico, fatto di terrore, sofferenza e immensa forza d'animo, è la testimonianza intensa di una vittoria straordinaria della vita sulla morte, è un inno sincero e commovente all'amicizia. La morte sospesa va ben oltre i confini della letteratura di montagna ed è ormai diventato un classico dell'avventura, letto e tradotto in tutto il mondo.

Joe Simpson

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