Full Title: TOUCHING THE VOID: THE HARROWING FIRST PERSON ACCOUNT OF ONE MAN'S MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL IN THE ANDES.
This copy is SIGNED by Joe Simpson on the title page and SIGNED by Simon Yates on the dedication page, as the book is dedicated to Simon. Simon is the man who cut the rope, allowing Joe to fall hundreds of feet into a Bergschrund. Simon then walked out, assuming that he had killed Joe!
Winner of the Boardman Tasker Award 1988
New York, 1988, 1st edition. 172 pp, illustrations. Hardcover with a Dust Jacket. Other than the author's signature there is no writing in the book or other flaws, and the dust jacket has no wear and is not price clipped. The Dust Jacket is protected by a removable Brodart clear plastic jacket cover. The Dust Jacket and the Book are in Fine condition. Many books that we describe as Fine are actually in New condition.
Many people consider this the greatest mountaineering book of our generation. This book is an illustrated account of the ascent of the west face of the 21,000ft peak, Siula Grande, in the Peruvian Andes. The peak is exactly 6,344 metres or 20,814 ft. The author and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, achieved the summit in June 1985 before disaster struck.
Simon Yates believed he had left Joe Simpson with a broken leg for dead in a crevasse. A few days later, Yates staggered into base camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead. For three days Simon Yates, believing that he had caused his friend's death, suffered torment and guilt.
However, a cry in the night led them to Joe, badly injured and delirious, crawling through the snow. Far from causing his friend's death, Simon had paradoxically saved his life when he cut the rope. What happened and how they dealt with the resulting psychological trauma is the subject of this book.
