In 1985, two young British climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to do something no one had ever done: climb the West Face of Siula Grande, a 21,000-foot peak in the remote Andes of Peru. After several days of hard climbing, they reached the summit. But on the way down, disaster struck. Joe fell and shattered his leg, an injury that, that high on the mountain, should have been a death sentence.
Instead of leaving him, Simon came up with a plan. He tied two ropes together and lowered Joe down the mountain, 300 feet at a time. As night fell and a storm moved in, Simon unknowingly lowered Joe over the edge of an ice cliff. Joe was left hanging in the air, unable to climb up or signal for help. For over an hour, Simon held on as his snowy seat began to give way beneath him. Finally, facing certain death for both of them, he made an agonizing decision. He cut the rope.
Joe fell into a deep crevasse. The next morning, Simon saw the crevasse, believed his friend was dead, and made his way back to base camp overcome with grief. But Joe had survived. With no way to climb out, he lowered himself even deeper into the crevasse and found a way out. Over the next three days, with no food and little water, he crawled and hopped across miles of glacier and rocks. He reached camp just hours before Simon planned to leave.
Joe later defended Simon’s decision, saying it saved both their lives. He told the story in his book Touching the Void.
Their story is covered in Deeply Driven Episode #31.
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