Overview

'Elegiac, immensely readable, full of the real excitement of climbing' M. John Harrison, Times Literary Supplement Simon Yates is 'the one who cut the rope' in Joe Simpson's award-winning account of their epic struggle for survival in Touching the Void. Afterwards, Yates continued mountaineering on the hardest routes. Perhaps the most testing of all was one of the world's largest vertical rockfaces, the 4, 000-ft East Face of the Central Tower of Paine in Chile. Battered by ferocious storms and almost crippled with fear just below the summit, Yates and his three companions are forced into a nightmare retreat. After resting in a nearby town, they return to complete the climb, but Yates knows he still has to face one of life's greatest challenges...

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9780099766414

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Reviews

Elegiac, immensely readable, full of the real excitement of climbing -- M. John Harrison Times Literary Supplement An engaging book, both the story of another great climb and a wistful acknowledgement that nothing, in any area of our lives, is ever quite what it seems -- Sara Wheeler Literary Review

An engaging book, both the story of another great climb and a wistful acknowledgement that nothing, in any area of our lives, is ever quite what it seems -- Sara Wheeler * Literary Review * Elegiac, immensely readable, full of the real excitement of climbing -- M. John Harrison * Times Literary Supplement *

In the minds of many, Yates is 'the one who cut the rope' when he was climbing with Joe Simpson in the Peruvian Andes. Simpson chronicled his remarkable survival in Touching the Void, while Yates continued to pursue a life climbing the hardest routes he could find. As this book opens, we find Yates climbing on the Central Tower of Paine in Chile, beset by storms and by doubts about his own relationship with the mountains. As he describes the expedition and his relationship with his climbing companions, Yates is also searching for a resolution to the worries that have beset him since the experience with Simpson, the need to gain a better perspective on his life and his need to continue climbing. Having said that, I cannot help but feel that Yates's skills lie in mountain climbing rather than in writing. He describes his climbs with great competence and endeavours to capture the feelings he experienced, but one is left with a sense that he doesn't possess the words to fully describe what he was thinking: the end result is rather flat and banal. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Simon Yates has climbed extensively in the Himalayas and the Andes, and travelled through India, Kazakhstan and Australia. His first book, Against the Wall, was runner-up for the Boardman Tasker Award for mountain literature.

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