Joe Simpson’s Bittersweet Last Climb
By Steve Casimiro on February 11th, 2013JOE SIMPSON’S BITTERSWEET LAST CLIMB
Joe Simpson, who wrote Touching the Void, isn’t dead. But in this slightly truncated essay on his last climb you can tell that he’s haunted by ghosts. Even in this story, nominally about a successful solo effort up the unclimbed southwest ridge of 21,246-foot Mera Peak, in Nepal in 2009, Simpson pays tribute to friends lost to climbing. And he credits the wisdom of a friend who bailed on the Mera trip, Ray Delaney, “who at the last minute had decided not to attempt the climb. He thought the ice cliffs threatening the ridge were too dangerous. He was probably right.” Simpson says that there was nothing better than seeing the summit of this mountain. But he also implies, albeit softly, that choosing to quit mountaineering rather than keep pushing himself to the brink has plenty of validity as well. Via The Telegraph.
Read more stories like this at Adventure Journal.
Tags: Climbing, mountaineering