Touching the Void is most certainly one of the most epic mountaineering books that I have read and truly captures the unbreakable determination and fight that resides in the human spirit. The book tells the real life story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates and their climb and disastrous descent from the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Simon and Joe are both young and accomplished mountaineers in their own right, who set out to the Andes Mountains in order to conquer the un climbed West Face of Siula Grande. During their travels to the mountain, they encounter a traveler by the name of Richard Hawking who accompanies them on their way to the mountains base. Joe and Simon ascend the Siula Grande in good time, feeling accomplished they made their descent down the mountain in treacherous conditions. During the descent, Joe cautiously making his way down a route of crevasses and loose snow suddenly hears a crack and falls breaking his leg and ankle severely. Simon is then faced with a decision either leave his friend on the mountain for dead or risk both of their lives trying to save his injured friend. Simon begins belaying Joe down the mountain only 150 yards at a time in a blinding blizzard when trouble strikes and Joe goes plummeting off a cliff face and has no way of ascending the rope or letting Simon know what has happened. Ultimately Simon in forced to cut the rope and send Joe falling into a crevasse

The book highlights a great deal of moral issues that face mountaineers throughout the century one of them being injuries in high altitude climbs and how climbers and expeditions should handle these situations. Joe having suffered a compound fracture in his leg and broken ankle high up on the Siula Grande was certainly doomed in his eyes and certainly Simon’s eyes saying, “It seemed such an obvious and unavoidable fact. It was academic really. I knew I was done for. It would make no difference in the long run” (76).  Textbook mountaineering protocol would suggest that you would leave a man in that condition especially that high up on the mountain but Simon showed incredible courage and perhaps a little stupidity when he chose to help his friend in what looked like a sure-fire failure of an endeavor to save him. The theme of determination and the brotherhood of the rope, as well as friendship, seems to override the sensible thing when climbers are faced with helping an injured or sick climber in inhospitable conditions. This seems to be an overriding theme that was encountered in numerous other mountaineering books especially ones that we have read during the semester. Examples of this are present in K2 The Savage Mountain when the group is suffering from the fatigue of severe storms and lack of oxygen, one of the members Art Gilkey situation is even more dire as he is suffering from altitude sickness and has blood clots building up in his leg rendering it impossible to move. Much like Touching the Void the group is faced with two options, one being to abandon their friend and fellow expedition member or two, attempt to rescue him against all odds while endangering every last man in the process. Their heroic attempt to save their friend ultimately failed and almost killed the rest of the members on the expedition during the process.

Again an eerily similar situation occurs in Annapurna when Maurice Herzogg is descending the mountain and is suffering from extreme frostbite and fatigue and is at the mercy of his comrades that are accompanying him on the expedition. Again the sensible thing would be to leave Herzogg and not put anyone else’s lives in danger but, the overriding theme of determination and the brotherhood of the rope causes these members to attempt to save him in which they succeed. It is amazing what sheer will and determination can do when an individual is faced with grim circumstances and that has been consistently tested especially in Touching the Void and Joe’s incredible determination to survive a certain death situation which is reflected in this passage”It would be a long time before cold and exhaustion overtook me on the ice bridge, and the idea of waiting alone and maddened for so long had forced me to this choice: abseil until I could find a way out, or die in the process. I would meet it rather than wait for it to come to me” (130). Some controversy like many other climbing texts has surrounded Simon and Joe’s expedition mostly in the form of criticism that Simon has received from his decision to cut the rope that held his friend. Again mountaineering books wouldn’t be mountaineering books if they didn’t receive their fair share of controversy. An apparent theme that mountaineering books share is that they all seem to have some sort of controversy surrounding decisions made by expedition members, the validity of the account, or whether or not anything could have been done in order to save lives etc.

Lastly Touching the Void displays the dependency on others for survival, without both Simon and Joe working together they could have never reached the peak of the Siula Grande and without the extreme courage and help from Simon Joe probably would not have survived his ordeal. They are climbing partners and as such they work in unison with each other. But after Joe’s accident, he becomes solely dependent on Simon for his survival and together they work out a comparable method of trying to descend the mountain together even though it will cause Joe immense pain and suffering. Towards the end of the book, Joe has become solely self-reliant in the fact that he climbed out of a crevasse, down the rest of the mountain and through a rock field only to finally succumb to his reliance on Simon. Luckily Simon hears his cries for help and comes to his rescue carrying him back to the tent and then safely getting him back to Lima in order to get medical attention. Overall this book might be one of the most incredible stories of survival that I have read including all the material that we read for the class this semester. In no other book can you find the disastrous and cliff-hanging moments on top of sheer gut-wrenching detail about how dire the situation was. On top of that, the human spirit to live and the emotional bond of climbing partners are all touched upon in this book making it a must read for anybody.