REFLECTION TOUCHING THE VOID

22

nd

April 2015

YOU WATCHED THE MOVIE TOUCHING THE VOID

ABOUT TWO MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS, JOE SIMPSON
AND
SIMON YATES. PLEASE ANSWER THE
FOLLOWING QUESTIONBRIEFLY DESCRIBE ATLEAST 8 LIFE LESSONS
OR MORE THAT YOU LEARNT FROM THE
MOVIE? EXPLAIN CLEARLY THE PARTS FROM
THE MOVIE WHICH MADE YOU REALIZE
THESE LESSONS? (200 WORDS)

Introduction:
1985. Joe and Simon two British friends where climb 6344 Meter in Peru. After
fifteen years they published the Book was turned in to documentary film of the
TOUCHING THE VOID name. Their aim was to conquer the unclimbed West
face of a notorious 21,000Ft peak. Simon slipped down an ice cliff and landed
awkwardly, crushing his tibia in to his knee joint, thus breaking his right leg. The
pair whose trip had already take longer than they intended. Due to bad weather
on the ascent had run out of fuel their stove and could they needed to descend
quickly to the glacier about 3000- feet below.
Proceeded to lower Simon by trying to tying two 150 -foot lengths of rope
together to make one 300-foot rope. However, could not go through the belay
plate and with storm condition worsening Simon have to stand on his good leg
and could to give slack to unclip the rope, in order thread the rope back through
the he could not see or hear Simon. Joe, He was fell Simon weight on the rope
.because his hand badly frost-bitten. He unable to tie the knots properly
accidently dropped one of the cords (Tools use for claiming) required to ascend
to the rope. Joe He make a very hard decision to cut the rope to save his own

life. As well Simon life. Because he been remained freezing wind for much
longer. Joe dropped down in to deep crevasse .and suffering from hypothermia
next day Joe climb the mountain by himself. When he reached the crevasse he
realized the situation that Simon had died the mounting alone .however, Simon
was still alive. And lower himself deeper I to the crevasse and how that there
was and the way out .After lowering himself, found another small entrance and
limbed back. Via a steep snow slope from there spent three days.

Cut the rope:

After he broke his leg they made decision to lower both to go back down,
suddenly Joe come down very fast that pain Simon up. Simon was struggled up
what to do? Because the weight of Joe begins to pulling Simon down whereas
take a quick decision to cut the cord. Cutting the rope saved both life in my
opinion. Because they were freezing under 40 degrees up on mountain. In fact,
decision in this moment would be an acceptable for worked out for the better. I
have learned to have quick decision whenever is required. In order to save
something

The end:
Survived and returned to his Friends. In conclusion, I am sure we were all like to
think we would have found a different solution but most of us probably would
not. Regardless, of Simons failures after that climb, his lack of knowledge or
ability to pass that. (Knot) I don't think he was wrong for cutting the rope.

Lessons:
I learn to avoid the risks .If it is harm me. Also I have learned to have quick
decision whenever is required. In order to save something. Do not put myself in
trouble. To not get blamed.

LSH 2203 Critical Thinking

Shaikha Khalifa Alfalasi

S980023315
Y2, Sec 51

Summary:
The approach to Siula Grande is a two-day hike from the nearest road
The climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, establish a base camp about
4-5 miles from the mountain. Then they set off...
The route to the mountain passes a glacial lake, followed by a long hike up
a valley and over the glacier itself.
Simpson and Yates climb 'alpine style,' with no fixed ropes or camps. They
carry everything they think they will need. They intend to climb up and
down the mountain in a three-to-four day push.
The drawback of 'alpine style' in the wilderness is that if something goes
wrong, there's no chance of a rescue. You're on your own.
The western face of Siula Grande has never been successfully climbed.
That's part of the appeal.
Day one goes well. Good weather. Clean snow and ice.
In the evening, about halfway up the face, Simpson and Yates dig a snow
cave and camp.
Climbing at high altitude leads to severe dehydration, so the climbers
have to melt lots of snow for water. They're carrying a limited amount of
food and fuel.
DAY TWO: The weather deteriorates...
And the climbing becomes difficult, exhausting, and dangerous.
It's exhausting to climb vertical ice, snow, and rock, even at sea level. At
18,000-20,000 feet, your heart races, and you gasp for breath
As Simpson and Yates near the top of the face, they run into trouble
Deep powder snow clings to extremely steep slopes. They have to fight
their way upward, with nothing to hang onto.
The climbing is so difficult that they progress only a few hundred feet in 56 hours.
Darkness has fallen, and the wind chill is brutal, so they dig another snow
cave and spend a second night on the face
DAY THREE: The weather has cleared. The climbers see what has been
giving them such trouble
Andean snow formations called 'flutings,' which are famously dangerous
and difficult.
Simpson and Yates continue upward. By mid-day on the third day, they
reach the ridge.
Exhausted, but relieved, they follow it to the summit
Upon reaching it, they become the first climbers to successfully scale the
west face of Siula Grande
Then, behind schedule, low on food and fuel, they head down, knowing
that most climbing accidents happen on the descent
Again, the weather deteriorates. Soon the climbers are lost in a white-out.

 The conditions are so treacherous that Yates falls through a cornice and off
the ridge. The rope stops his fall, and he struggles back up.
Soon thereafter, the climbers decide to bivouac again
That night, their third on the mountain, they use the last of their fuel
DAY FOUR: The next morning, the weather is clear. Simpson and Yates are
still high on the mountain, but the toughest section of the ridge is behind
them. They began to think they have the climb 'in the bag.'
Then Simpson reaches a section of the ridge that drops off sharply. He
turns around to descend it, using his ice axes for holds.
Near the top, unhappy with his left-hand axe placement, he removes the
axe from the ice to reset it
Suddenly, the right axe gives way.
Simpson falls, landing with his right leg fully extended. The impact drives
his lower leg bone through his knee joint, shattering his knee
The pain is excruciating.
Simpson's first thought, at 20,000 feet on a remote mountain ridge, is 'I
can't have broken my leg. If I've broken my leg, I'm dead
When the shock of pain has subsided, he tries to stand on the leg, hoping
he has just torn ligaments. He hears the bones grind and collapses in pain.
Above, oblivious to what has happened, Yates follows the rope forward.
When Simpson relays the news, Yates has the same apocalyptic thought:
'We're stuffed. We're going to be doing well if either of us get out of this
now.'
Yates gives Simpson some pain killers. Simpson assumes that Yates will
then leave him to die on the mountain. They are out of food and fuel. They
can't stay where they are. No help can reach them. And Simpson can't
move. So, what else can Yates do but save himself and leave Simpson?
To Simpson's surprise, Yates does not leave. Rather, he starts to dig a seat
in the snow. Then he sits in it and sets about lowering Simpson down the
~3,000-foot face.
The climbers only have two 150-foot ropes. They tie them together.
Simpson lies on his belly. Yates sits above him and lets out the rope.
Simpson begins sliding down the face on his belly.
Simpson slides feet first. Fast. Every time his shattered leg hits the snow,
he feels a shock of excruciating pain
When Simpson has reached the end of the first 150 foot rope, Yates tugs
the rope. Simpson sets his ice axes and takes his weight off the rope.
Yates unhooks the rope and moves the knot through his belay plate. Then
he lowers Simpson another 150 feet on the second rope.
When they reach the end of the second rope, Simpson sets himself, and
Yates starts climbing down. Then Simpson stands on his good leg and
begins digging another snow seat. When Yates reaches him, they repeat
the lowering process again. And again. And again...
The weather remains terrible. Once again, night begins to fall

 Remarkably, the climbers repeat the lowering process successfully around

10 times through the darkness. They are nearing the bottom of the face,
about to finish a miraculous and heroic escape. But, once again,
something goes wrong.
On his belly, sliding fast, Simpson feels the snow beneath his elbows turn
to ice. The steepness of the slope increases, and he begins to accelerate.
Realising what is happening, he screams at Yates to stop the rope. But the
wind is so strong that Yates can't hear him
The slope gets steeper and steeper. Simpson tries frantically to stop
himself.
But then he sails off the edge of an overhanging cliff
When the end of the first rope reaches Yates's belay plate, Simpson's fall
suddenly stops. He finds himself hanging in mid-air, about 80 feet above
the glacier at the bottom of the face.
Directly below him, Simpson can see the mouth of a gigantic crevasse
Simpson pulls himself to a sitting position on the rope and tries to reach
the face of the cliff with his ice-axe. The cliff is steeply overhanging, and
the face is too far away to reach.
Simpson yells up to Yates, who has no idea what has happened. The storm
is raging, and Yates can't hear him.
Yates tugs on the rope--the signal for Simpson to take his weight off so
Yates can move the knot through the belay plate. Simpson, hanging in
mid-air, can't take his weight off. Still unaware of what has happened,
Yates just hangs on.
150 feet below Yates, hanging in mid-air, Simpson realises that his only
chance is to find a way to climb up the rope to the top of the cliff.
He takes his gloves off and tries to use his frozen hands to tie knots in
small pieces of rope that might allow him to ascend the main rope.
He gets the first ascender knot tied, and then goes to work on the other
one. In the freezing wind, his hands are like clubs.
He almost gets the second ascender tied... and then he drops it.
And that's it. There is simply nothing else Simpson can do.
Meanwhile, hundred and fifty feet up the mountain, Yates' position is
becoming increasingly desperate. He is exhausted and freezing. And his
snow seat is beginning to collapse. Yates can feel it giving way beneath
him.
Below, Simpson can feel the rope jerk lower as Yates' seat begins to give
way. He thinks that Yates will soon lose his grip on the mountain and
'come off,' sending them both plunging toward the glacier below
But there is nothing that Simpson can do about this. Helpless, freezing, he
just hangs at the end of the rope, 'waiting to die.
Somehow, Yates holds on for an hour and a half. He still has no idea what
has happened to Simpson. He can't understand why Simpson hasn't taken
his weight off the rope. All he knows is that he can't hold on much longer.

 Yates' seat is also continuing to crumble. He knows it is only a matter of

time before it gives way. When it does, he'll fly off the mountain, and they
will both die (if Simpson isn't dead already).
Then Yates remembers that he has a pen-knife in the top of his pack. He
makes the decision instantly. He shifts the rope to one hand and uses the
other to fumble for the knife...
He finds it. And opens it.
And he cuts the rope that is holding Joe Simpson.
Then Yates collapses backward into the snow, exhausted
Down below, Simpson is falling 80 feet through the air.
He hits the 'glacier,' only to smash through a thin snow bridge...
...and he plunges into the gigantic crevasse.
Up the mountain, still clinging to the face, Yates digs himself a snow cave.
He crawls into his sleeping bag and spends a fourth and awful night on the
mountain, sure that his friend and partner is dead
Sometime later that night, Simpson comes to. Gradually, he realises that
he's not dead.
He has no idea where he is, though, so he switches on his headlamp
He discovers that he is lying on a thin ice ledge about 80 feet deep in the
crevasse. He isn't at the bottom of the crevasse. He is on a ledge. He has
fallen 160 feet and somehow, miraculously, survived. He has also landed
in the only place possible. If he had fallen a couple of feet to the right or
left, he would have plunged to his death.
Simpson screws himself in.
Then he hauls in his rope, which extends upwards to the hole he fell
through, about 80 feet above him. He assumes that Yates has fallen off
the mountain and landed beyond the crevasse on the glacier. So he
expects to feel the rope become taut as he pulls against Yates' body. But it
doesn't.
Then he gets to the end of the rope and finds that it has been cut.
He tries to climb out of the crevasse, but the only route out is 80 feet of
vertical ice. He couldn't climb that with two good legs, let alone one.
Devastated, angry, exhausted, and feeling utterly alone, he settles in to
wait for morning.
DAY FIVE
The next morning, Simon Yates emerges from his snow hole, and rappels
down the last part of the face. As he descends, he passes the cliff that
Simpson fell over, and he finally understands what happened. He also
sees the enormous crevasse at the base of the cliff and becomes certain
that Simpson is dead.
Weeks later, back in Britain, Yates will be heavily criticised by the
mountaineering community for cutting the rope on his partner. But both
Simpson and Yates agree that Yates had no other choice. One mistake that
Yates does make is not spending more time the next morning yelling into
the crevasse to make sure that Simpson is dead. In Yates' defence, he is

desperately exhausted, starved, and dehydrated. Devastated, he heads

back down the glacier, alone.
Deep in the crevasse, Simpson wakes up covered with new snow.
Perversely, discovering that the rope had been cut has given him hope: It
means that Yates had not fallen off the mountain and, therefore, might be
able to rescue him. For several hours, clinging to the ledge, Simpson yells
for help. By 10am, he knows that it isn't coming.
Simpson can't go up: There is no scaling a wall of vertical ice with only
one leg. With no food or water or any expectation of help, he also can't
stay where he is. So, gradually, he realises that there is only one thing he
can do. It means almost certain death. But almost-certain death is better
than the alternative.
He ties himself in and starts to lower himself down deeper into the
crevasse.
He slides down the slope of his ledge.
And over the edge.
He hasn't tied a knot at the end of the rope. (Why bother? If he gets to the
end of it without hitting anything, he's dead regardless.).. Down, down,
down...
Until, suddenly, he sees that he's coming to some sort of a bottom
Only it's not the bottom. It's another thin snow bridge. And as he crawls
across it, he can hear ice falling beneath him. But he keeps crawling.
Because on the far side of the bridge, he sees something he can hardly
believe. A climb-able slope leading to a hole with the sun shining through
it, a couple of hundred feet above
Simpson makes it across the snow bridge and begins hauling himself up
the slope.
Setting his axes, he propels himself up with his arms and his one strong
leg... For hours, he makes slow but steady progress.
Then, early that afternoon, he pokes his head through the snow hole and
hauls himself out into the sun, feeling reborn
The sun feels wonderful, and he lies in it and soaks it up. But then he
realises that his predicament is almost as dire as before.
He has been climbing for five days. He has no food or water. His right leg
is shattered. And he is five miles from help.
Five miles of extraordinarily dangerous and difficult terrain.
The distance seems impossibly long. But he sees Yates' footprints leading
away down the glacier. So he picks a point a couple of hundred yards
away. And he gives himself 20 minutes to reach it... ... and begins pushing
himself along
For the rest of the day, he crawls and pushes. When he reaches one shortterm goal, he picks another in the distance, and gives himself a certain
amount of time to reach it.
If he makes the goal in time, he feels a wash of accomplishment and
hope. If he doesn't, he is plunged into despair. But he keeps moving..

 Even as the weather begins to deteriorate again, and wind covers up

Yates' tracks.
He crawls late into the night, despite the risk of falling into a crevasse.
Then, eventually, in yet another snowstorm, he stops to sleep for a while.
DAY SIX: The weather once again clears. Simpson resumes crawling.
Base camp is still inconceivably far away. So he keeps picking points he
can see and giving himself specific amounts of time to reach them
By the middle of the day, starved and dehydrated and exhausted to the
point of hallucination, Simpson reaches the end of the snow and ice.. He
rests for a while.
Then he ditches his gear and wraps his sleeping pad around around his
shattered leg. And starts moving again.
He can no longer slide himself, so he has to hop. One step forward, then a
shock of pain and a collapse onto the rocks.
When the pain subsides, he gathers the resolve to struggle back to his
feet and do it again.
All that afternoon, he staggers through the rocks.. One excruciating step
at a time.
Late in the afternoon, he finally finds running water--a thin stream trickling
over the rocks. He presses his face into the rocks...
Late in the afternoon, he finally finds running water--a thin stream trickling
over the rocks. He presses his face into the rocks...
That night, he hops until he can't move anymore. Then he lies back and
looks at the stars, drifting in and out of consciousness. For the first time in
a week, the night is clear, and he doesn't wake up covered with snow.
DAY SEVEN: The next morning, back at base camp, Simon Yates burns
Simpson's clothes. It is a way of saying goodbye.
A friend at base camp urges Yates to leave that day, to put the nightmare
behind him. Yates refuses. He just isn't ready to leave. They will wait one
more day and then begin the two-day trek back to civilisation in the
morning.
A couple of miles away, Simpson awakes in the heat of the morning sun.
The warmth feels wonderful, and he has little strength left with which to
move on. It still seems inconceivable that he could make it all the way to
the tents. He also knows that the tents, and help, might no longer be
there even if he reaches them. But he staggers to his feet and begins to
move on.
All that morning and afternoon he crawls down the valley.
Increasingly, as he realises that he might actually be able to make it back
to camp, he becomes haunted by the idea that Yates has already gone.
But he keeps moving. And, by late afternoon of the seventh day, more
than three days after the accident, he finally reaches the glacial lake.
He reaches the end of the lake by dusk. But the weather is bad again. And
the valley is filled with fog and clouds.

 He keeps crawling through the darkness. By now, he is so drained that he

keeps blacking out, coming to, drifting in and out of consciousness. When
his head clears enough for him to know where he is, he crawls forward
again.
Sometime during the night, it begins to snow again. A song he hates by
Boney M enters his head and repeats over and over. When he is aware
enough to think, he thinks that he is going to die to Boney M.
Late that night, still drifting in and out of consciousness, Simpson smells
something awful. At first, he thinks he has defecated on himself.
Gradually, he realises that he had crawled through the group of rocks that
he and Yates had used as the bathroom for base camp. He realises that, if
Yates were still there, he would be close enough to hear him. So he begins
yelling, 'Simon! Simon!' There is no response. And with a final wave of
despair, Simpson concludes that he is too late. Yates is gone. Simpson is
dead.
A hundred yards away, asleep in the tent, Yates hears what sounds like an
animal wailing. He listens hard, and there it is again. To his utter shock
and disbelief, he realises that there is only one thing it can be.. Yates
straps on his headlamp and rushes out into the darkness.
After searching frantically among the rocks, five miles and four days from
where he had last seen him, he finds the partner he had left for dead.
Simpson is in awful shape, having lost a third of his body weight. Yates
helps him to the tent.
The first thing Simpson does when they reach the tent is thank Yates for
helping him down the mountain.
Over the next year, Simpson will have 6 operations to repair his shattered
leg.
Eventually, to the amazement of his doctors, he will climb again
The survival story of Simpson (left) and Yates (center) quickly becomes a
mountaineering legend. A couple of years after they return to England,
Simpson tells the story in 'Touching The Void,' in part to help explain why
Yates cut the rope--a decision that Simpson always defended.
In 2003, 18 years after the accident, the movie was released. It was
narrated by Simon Yates (here). and Joe Simpson.