Book Review - Touching the Void

Touching the void is an insane story about a man who survived that in any other

situation, would have been dead in hours. This heroic story is about his adventure for

survival and what he had to do to survive. Joe and Simon are going on a

mountaineering trip and are about to go through big instant changes. The mountaineers

are about to begin their climb, be forced to separate, and then barely make it back alive.

After they make it back home, they will never be the same again.

Touching the Void begins here where the two friends begin their climb completely

unaware what fait befalls them. Joe and Simon who decide to climb this section of the

mountain that had never been climbed before It was called Siula grande in the Andes

mountains. the intended to climb what was known as the west face and reach the

summit. They thought they were making good time and were on their way up the

mountain in no time. They headed up and by the time they had reached the top they

were both absolutely exhausted and out of gas for their stove. this means they could no

longer melt snow into drinking water and or tea. They began to descend and not too

long later, Joe's ice pick (He was swinging the other one at the time) came dislodged

from the wall and he fell and landed on his right leg. The lower leg bone drove up

through his knee and up to his upper leg. Joe could not stand on the leg let alone climb.

After Joe fell down and broke his leg, he knew that he was dead, and that he

would be left up the mountain, forced to find his own way. In other words they would

have to break up or split apart. Instead they came up with a brilliant plan and executed it

successfully. They attached a 300 ft long rope between them and lowered Joe down the

mountain 300 ft at a time. The 300 ft rope was actually two 150 ft ropes with a knot in

the middle, so when it came to the knot, Simon tugged on the rope to signal Joe to give

it some slack so he could untie the ropes and tie them again. They were doing fine until

Simon lowered joe over a ridge and too far down to the point he could not give Simon

any slack. After a while of waiting Joe attempted to climb but dropped his climbing rope.

Simon had no choice but to cut him loose so they wouldn't both die. Joe was dropped

80 ft or more into a dark crevasse below the ridge and could not find a way out. Simon

made a snow cave and could not stop thinking of how he thought Joe just died.

Even though Simon was not able to save Joe, he was still able to barely save

himself. After the night Simon made his way down the side of the ice cliff that he had let

Joe down. He saw the crevasse and immediately thought that Joe was dead and that

there was no way to save him. Simon moved down the mountain and followed their

tracks through all of the crevasses. He finally made it to the end of the glacier and found

their base camp and was just amazed he had made it down alive. Meanwhile, Joe was

on a ledge at the side of the crevasse and thought the only way out was to go down. So

he moved down, went across a snow bridge and found a hole to climb out of. He made

it onto the surface but now he had to cross the glacier and the rocks. All the way back

he set goals to keep him going and instinct took over as he plundered on and began to

loose sanity hearing the water that was so close under the rocks but was out of his

reach. He continued to the camp and eventually found his way to where they used the

restroom on the rocks. He shouted for Simon and he came out of the tent to find Joe

200 yards from the camp. They mad it home and two years and six operations later, Joe

finally recovered and went climbing again.

After this story ends it leaves the reader wishing for more. Even in a kind of dark

way, wishing their car broke down and they had to crawl form the mountains to the

village. It may seem odd but thats how interesting it is to listen to someone describe

how close they came to death and embraced insanity to continue on the struggle for life.

In that ver moment, nothing mattered more in his mind then getting home safely. The

epic story comes to a close even after the amazing events of beginning the trip, splitting

up, and both of them surviving in their own way. So no matter what happens in his life,

Joe Simpson can look back on his closer than close scrape with death and be thankful

that he is still alive.