Touching the Void
analytical Essay
1038 words
Touching the Void
Can you imagine a climbing a mountain in Peru and it's only you and your climbing parnter. You all reach the top of the 21,000 peak that no one has ever climbed before. Its cold, your getting frositebite, and on your way back down the summit and then something unexpected, you break your leg. Of all the things that could have happen on a mountain, and it's only two of you. So,you were thinking about staying there because you had given up hope. But your parnter wouldn't let you,so he desided to lower you the side of the mountain on a belay seat. Half way down the mountain a bad blizzard hits and it hard to see and to hold on to you friend who couldn't get into a snow hole. So stuck with a dufficlt sticution do you cut the rope or have both of you fall to your death?
Well this is what happened to Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. They climbed the west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. They had no problem getting up it was when they came down, and Joe broke his leg and it went through his knee joint is what caused difficulties. Sinc eit was only the two of them rescueing Joe would be a major problem. Joe knew that Simon could make t do by himself ok, and that he might have to get left there to die, because it would be hare to get down the mountain with a broken leg. But Simon decided to help him down,after looking at him sitting in the snow and seeing how meesed up he was. After a little while of thinking about how to get Joe down the side of the mountain Simon comes up with an idea to put two ropes together and have a pulley device to lower Joe down, and climbing down until they got to the bottum.
While Simon was lowering Joe a snowstorm was brewing around them and night was approching. They knew that they had two hours to go ,they decieded to keep going unstead of digging a snow hole and waiting until morning. The snowstorm is getting worse and Simon is still trying to lower Joe, but Joe falls over a steep ice wall and is hanging with nowhere to build a fast snow hole.
In this essay, the author
- Narrates how they imagine climbing a mountain in peru with only two people. they break their leg on the way back down the summit. half way down, the blizzard hits and it's hard to see.
- Describes how joe simpson and simon yates climbed the siula grande in the peruvian andes in 1985. joe broke his leg and it went through his knee joint, which caused difficulties.
- Narrates how simon was lowering joe when a snowstorm brewing around them and they decided to keep going unsteady of digging snow holes and waiting until morning.
- Narrates how simon didn't think twice about cutting the rope, he just reacted. he flew backwards into the seat as the pulling straun vanished.
- Describes how joe fell 100 feet down into a crevasse after simon cut the rope. he didn't know if simon was dead, alive or uncounsion, but he could climb out using simon's body weight.
- Narrates how the man tried to make a tight figure eight knot, but felt he got it right. he clipped his knot into an ice screw buried into the wall, which wouldn't pull free under his weight.
- Analyzes how simon's decision to cut the rope made joe decide if he was going to let himself die on the ledge or fight for his life.
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