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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels April 22, 2004 Readers also can touch 'the Void' By Chris Honore Tidings Reviewer Touching the Void By Joe Simpson Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY; 217 pages (paperback) In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to climb the West face of the majestic 21,000-foot Siula Grande, in the Peruvian Andes. "Touching the Void" is the first person account of that ascent and the harrowing descent that resulted in disaster and almost cost both climbers their lives. This book (now a newly released movie of the same name) may be one of the greatest survival stories of the last 25 years. There are moments in this story that defy comprehension and redefine what it means to literally will oneself to prevail. After successfully reaching the summit of Siula Grande, the two climbers begin the long journey down. Roped together, short of supplies, and facing plunging temperatures, they made their way slowly off the mountain, traversing rocky faces and deceptive snow fields. It proved more difficult than they expected. Suddenly, Simpson, making his way over an ice ledge, falls with such force that he jams the bone of his lower right leg up into the knee, shattering the joint. As climbers know, to be at this elevation, with only one companion, and sustain such an injury can be a death sentence. Yet, Simon Yates and Joe Simpson form an alliance of the improbable and begin the slow descent together with Yates lowering the crippled Simpson yard by yard, ever downward. It is during this painful and arduous process that Simpson falls yet again. This time Yates is forced to cut him loose or send both of them off the mountain into a deep crevasse, thousands of feet below. It is a harrowing moment, one that Yates is still debating and defending, for he was certain that it meant that he was sending Simpson to his death. The rest of the book tells Simpson's story as he struggles, against all odds, to survive. Finding himself trapped on a fragile snow bridge deep in a crevasse, and against all of his instincts, and overcoming an overwhelming panic that is paralytic, he makes choices that are so contraindicated that they are still a puzzle to him today as they are the reader. In the reading it is hard not to stop and say simply, "Good God." But Simpson perseveres and in the end he survives. Knowing the outcome of this story (the same has been said of the movie) takes away nothing from this incredible story. The power is in the effort not in the conclusion. This is a book well worth finding and reading. It will only add to the appreciation of the film, which is made as a docudrama and, if the buzz is correct, is superb. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams