Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Touching The Void .. UPDATE

...Found this on Zap2it.com - Congrats to the filmmakers on winning the BAFTA award.

Link is:
<a href=http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---20343,00.html>Touching The Void Wins Bafta

When Ken started the first "Touching the Void" thread, I was tempted to add my 2 cents. My take on the book was completely different than most everyone elses. But, I thought I should go back and re-review the book to ensure my points were valid before opening my mouth.

So I did. Here it is. And, at the risk of being off-topic, I'm posting into this thread (rather than the original), so as to hopefully avoid re-igniting the whole (unresolvable) religious debate.

"Touching the Void" is certainly an amazing tale of courage, perseverance, and determination in the face of what was almost certain doom.

Yet, IMHO, this is not a brave story of two heros - courageous, experienced, mountaineers who "got into a desperate situation" and then managed to extracate themselves from it with their lives.

Instead, it's a story of two extremely foolish men who threw caution and their years of accumulated judgement and experience to the winds, and embarked on a climb that defied the very essence of mountaineering - judgement and self-reliance.

Neither one of these two men should even be alive today, considering the consistent and blatant ways they (needlessly) put their lives at risk virtually every minute of this climb.

In other words, this was not a case of using judgement to carefully assess and manage risk, and then having something happen. Judgement was not even applied. They just started climbing up the mountain come hell or high water until - inevitably - something happened.

It's truely a miracle* that either one is alive today to tell the tale.

(*Yeah, I know. Please accept my use of this word w/out starting the debate up again)

Here's some examples of what I'm talking about from the book:

PAGES 28/29:

They're trying to get up an ice field to an ice couloir which will lead them to a safe place to bivi for the night... It's getting late, and they're faced with either climbing one last ice wall in the dark, or staying where they are (in an uncomfortable spot) for the night.

Simon bangs in an ice screw, clips in, and starts climbing the ice wall, completely forgetting about placing anymore protection whatsoever until he's 120 feet up and has to backtrack.

"...This way is wrong. Damn, damn! Get back down, reverse it. No! Put a screw in.
I fumble at my harness for a screw but can't find one - forget it, just get back below the icicles."

A sentence later:

"Spindrift powder rushed down in a burst from above. Unexpected, it made my heart leap.
I had no ice screws. I had forgotten to take them from Simon and had used my only screw down at the bottom. I did not know what to do, 120 feet up very steep ice. Go back down? I was scared of the unprotected drop beneath me, and the idea of needing an ice screw for a belay if I couldn't find any rock."

Couple sentences later:

"...I bridged across the tube, legs splayed against yielding snow. I flailed my axes, dreading the 240-foot fall below me on to one ice screw ..."

Comment: This is a mistake I might make, but two seasoned, experienced, alpine climbers??? And
neither one of them remembered to pass the screws over, nor did Simon even think about placing
another one until he's 120 feet up in the dark on rotten, honeycombed ice??? Unbelievable.

This is secondary to the question of whether prudent judgement would have dictated that they look for a safe (albeit uncomfortable perhaps) bivi location earlier, while still light, and give up the goal of making it to that one spot.

PAGE 40, (next day):

"The was also a long gap of unprotected rope between me and Simon who was belaying me from our
resting place. His only anchor was his axes buried in the snow, and I knew all too well how useless these would be if I made a mistake."

PAGE 44, (another day):

"Suddenly our exposed stance appalled me. The loose snow was so steep and my belay so precarious that I felt a sickening disbelief in what we were doing."

PAGE 47, (in a whiteout):

"Wish we had a compass"

PAGE 58, (next day, trying to descend):

Walking along a cornice, Joe slips. Simon, a full rope length behind and out of sight, will have no idea which side of the ridge Joe is falling off of.

"Then, just as suddenly, I stopped, with my whole body pressed into the snow, head buried in it, with my arms and legs spreadeagled in a desperate crabbed position."
...
"My body was tipped over to the right so that I seemed to be hanging out over the West Face. All my thoughts became locked into not moving."
...
"In fact, I found that my right leg had punctured straight through the cornice ..."

In other words, it's hanging out into space thousands of feet above the glacier below.
This after they already had Simon take a fall the day before (see page 48) when 40 feet of the ridgeline broke off beneath him.

Needless to say, they decide it'll be safer if they don't walk directly along the edge of the cornice any more.

PAGE 62, (the disaster strikes):

Then finally, we come to the cliff that Joe decides to solo his way down.

Now, I'm not a technical climber, so perhaps you can flame me for second guessing. But, what is the point of having a partner, if you don't use them? Why even bother to have a rope joining the two of you if you can't even see each other and protect each other? Couldn't Joe have waited FIVE MINUTES for Simon to join him and assess the situation together? Wouldn't a picket, or an ice screw, or SOMETHING been better than nothing at all?

Nah! Just go for it! After all, what's the worst that could happen?

Courageous? Yes. Determined? Yes! Amazing story of persistence and unrelenting will? Definitely!

Heros? Nope. Just stupid.

Thanks for the excerpts, Clamberabout. I had not heard about this book until the first thread appeared, and decided then to add it to my "must read" list. Judging from the sections of the book that you quoted, I can definately see your points. I think I'm going to have to make a trip to the bookstore....

I don't neccessarily agree that everything Joe and Simon did was sound mountaineering proceedure, but before we pass judgement on these guys I think we should consider some things.Their career accomplishments speak for themselves.Also, how many times have you yourself found yourself close to a summit bid and been so caught up in the moment that you did something that was possibly somewhat risky and out of the norm for you? I know I have.....it's human nature. Take into account the fact that our thinking is altered at the altitude they were at....for that matter, I've seen irrational thinking at Whitney!Factor in also the elements of weather, fatique,injury etc.We must also consider that some amount of artistic license is taken when writing adventure books.....look as far back as Clarence Kings "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada.....even the forward written by Francis Farquar warns of the over zealous nature of Kings writings and that parts of the book should be viewed with skeptisizm.Monday morning quaterbacking is always easy, but until we are on the field running the same play, it may be hard to say what we ourselves might do when faced with the same circumstances.Can any of us honestly say we could have survived that?

Interstingly, Clamber, I think the first people to largely agree with you would be Yates and Simpson, based upon my personal interaction with Simpson. In describing his climb, his intonation and body language support what he says, which is that they were a couple of blokes, too filled with testrosterone to use good judgement. I don't think he'd have any trouble with your characterization, at all.

I am speaking as a climber of 25 years, ice, rock, trad and sport and and a long time whitewater kayaker. All risk sports are selfish and foolish if you take the time to look at it. But they are extremly rewarding when all goes right and even sometimes wrong. Some of the most gratifying climbs have been the so called "epics", forced bivies, dropped gear, unexpected weather. I have stopped trying to find some lofty ideal as to why I climb. It's just fun, period.

I lost a very good friend in a ice climbing accident about 8 years ago in June Lake. He was a accomplished rock and ice climber with many first ascents. But he left behind a wife and kids and alot of friends who loved him. And all for what? He put his kids and wife at risk every time he took chances climbing just as we all do. They run the risk of losing a spouse, father mother etc. I am not saying you shouldnt climb or participate in risk sports, I still do. But dont try and glorify it. Just accept it for what it is, selfish and risky.

DHMeieio. Just wondering. Given the fact that you've never set foot on Mt Whitney's summit, do you frequent other boards, maybe McKinley, or Shasta, etc., and give those boards the same priceless, experienced, first person advice and input you're gracing us with? Even though you've probably never summited them either?

If you do frequent the other boards, make sure to let them know that you write EIR's, because that has impressed us on this board OH SO MUCH.

It is always easy to sit down here well fed, breathing oxygen rich air and being well rested and find faults with 20/20 hindsight about climbers who are malnourished, oxygen deprived, physically spent, and, yes, perhaps overly pumped about making the summit. Yet I can't believe the number of incredibly bad decisions that I've made over my climbing career when I'm up there. I've watched skilled surgeons unable to correctly tie a basic knot that they can do with their eyes closed at sea level (or even 15,000 feet). I've seen skilled climbers put in a piece of pro that they normally know better than to stake their lives on. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Very few top tier climbers have not made serious mistakes in judgement from a combination of things that we all routinely face at high altitudes. For some of them, the mistake is fatal, but sometimes it just creates a 'thrilling moment'. Just look at the long list of top climbers who have died in the past several years. I doubt that any of us has much better judgment than they do in the physically and mentally compromised situation facing a tough climbing challenge. If you think otherwise, you probably haven't been there.

DHMeieio & Rosabella,

Don't stop at just "Touching the Void." He's written several books and they are all good reads. Being selfish, I'm glad he's not climbing anymore (and coming to an untimely end). Hopefully, he'll keep writing into his old age.

Many of the posts have hit the nail on the head speaking from the perspective of a climber. I think that we've all made at least boderline poor decisions at one time, or another, in the quest for the peak or pass.

I have, and have read, all of his books, and I find him to be an interesting writer. It is interesting that he says in his talk that had the events in "Void" not happened, he would never have become a writer, which fundamentally changed the course of his life.

BTW, Simon Yates also wrote a book, really an autobiography, and I find it interesting, as well. He spends virtually no time on the "Void" segment, referring people to Simon's book. He simply refers to it at an adventure. wow.

I recommend them all.

Thanks, Richard and Ken. I'm planning on a trip up to Tacoma and my favorite Borders book store. I may stock up on a couple of these books you mentioned... give me something to read these rainy Washington afternoons.

I went and saw the movie yesterday afternoon. It's definitely worth seeing.