'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson

To put it simply, this book is the most tremendous tale of human courage I have ever read. It is a non-fiction classic about both the extreme risks we take in pursuit of thrills and the value of survival once those risks have placed life in danger. Simpson and his climbing partner Simon Yates faced both whilst climbing Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes.

The climb begins well enough. Their ascent of the western face of the mountain is largely successful despite regular bouts of frostbite. They endure such hardship with the good humour of experienced climbers who are used to difficult conditions. Little were they to realise that their problems were just beginning.

On the descent, Simpson falls over a ledge and snags his leg on Yates' rope. His knee is broken by the fall. With only his climbing partner for company on a remote mountain, this injury is a death sentence. Yet, amongst the many instances of heroism in this story, Yates bears his partner's weight on a guide rope as they descend together. By doing this, it is clear that Yates took a terrible risk with his own life, one that would lead to an even greater disaster.

At this point, the climbers seem to have a slim chance of escaping with their lives. Yet, fate intervenes once again. Simpson falls into a crevasse whilst Yates holds him on the rope. Yates faces an impossible choice, his own life or Simpson's. In a moment of anguish, he makes a choice that none of us would hope to face up to. Simpson is left on his own, assumed to be dead.

As Yates returns to the camp in tears for the choice he made, the audience is confronted by the thought of what we would have done if faced by the same situation. It is difficult to picture being there but the book is so well written that it is possible to feel every action taken by the climbers, even for someone with absolutely no experience of it.

At the bottom of the crevasse, Simpson finds it within himself to escape. He hops, crawls and hauls his way to the surface. Distances that would usually be covered in ten minutes take hours. No weight can be placed on his broken leg. Every moment of his painstaking descent is captured in gruesome detail. Simpson is not sentimental about those days and you get a very close sense of how close he came to death.

He shows typical Sheffield grit in his attitude to survival. The sheer extremes of starvation and dehydration are difficult to imagine, let alone descending a 20,000 ft mountain with a broken kneecap. The reader feels closely involved, willing Joe to make it. It never feels certain that he will but when he finally does get to base camp he is in such a state as to make survival uncertain.

Yates cannot believe that his partner has survived. Their reunion is one of the most moving passages of the book. Not for one moment does it seem contrived or exaggurated. In such harsh circumstances, Yates and Simpson found incredible reserves of strength and resilience.

A truly remarkable tale of adventure and survival. So much more than just a book about climbing.