Retro Rescued Reviews #1-Dark Shadows Falling/This Game Of Ghosts by Joe Simpson

In 1992, an Indian climber was left to die alone high on the South Col of Mount Everest by other climbers who watched his feebly waving hand from the security of their tent thirty yards away. Some film footage of his corpse was later shown on television. Why did these onlookers not hold the dying man's hand and comfort him? The answer appalls Joe Simpson, who was himself left for dead in a crevasse at the foot of Siula Grande in Peru in 1985. 

It is an uncomfortable ethical question that he is forced to confront as he attempts a difficult new route on Pumori, with a clear view of the whole South Col from close to the vantage point where Eric Shipton first spotted the way up the south side of Everest taken by Hillary and Tenzing in 1953. Now that Everest has become the playground of the rich, where commercial operators offer guided tours to the top up fixed ropes, camping amidst the detritus and unburied corpses of previous less fortunate climbers, Simpson wonders if the noble, caring instincts that once characterized mountaineering have been irrevocably displaced as in other facets of today's society.

My Review:
This book begins with the horrific story of an Indian climber lying dying out on the snow on mount Everest, with his team looking at him and deciding that he was unable to be saved. What follows is shocking as they leave him out just beyond the tents to die. Despite being found by a second expedition, they too decide he's probably going to die and don't help him. So close to safety and a chance to survive, he is left to die, to the disgust of Joe Simpson. He makes comparisons to Beck Weathers who had a miracle escape on Everest in 1996 when he too was abandoned. It was only his will to live that saved him. Simpson looks at the behaviour of climbers in both of these circumstances, the overcrowding on the mountain which leads to selfish decisions for those determined to have their glory and how it puts lives at risk. When is it right to try to save someone and when must you leave someone to die? Simpson looks at various examples of fatal decisions.

He goes on to look at poor decision making on K2, an even more dangerous mountain where weather can often be fatal. He talks about the two expeditions on K2 at the same time. While one team including British climber Alison Hargreaves took more time to adapt to conditions, the second team took a small window of good weather, got to the summit and safely reached Base Camp. Hargreaves team ignored her wish to have done the same and grabbed that opportunity, and the group were killed shortly after when a brutal storm claimed their lives. Those split second decisions can be crucial on these mountains. He also looks at dangerous situations that he has been in on the mountain, all of which are just as fascinating to read about.

This was an excellent follow up to Touching the Void, looking again at the danger faced when climbing mountains, the role of the media in reporting disasters and the moral questions involved.

Read February 2013
4 stars. 

When mountain climber Simon Yates cut the rope and sent his friend and climbing partner Joe Simpson plummeting to an ordeal few mountaineers can have contemplated, the outcome was totally unpredictable. That Simpson survived his experience on Peru's Siula Grande is a revelation of the power of the human spirit to overcome fear, pain and deprivation of almost unimaginable intensity. He did not expect to live it all over again - more than once. The first test was to write his award-winning account of the ordeal in Touching the Void. That meant dragging the terrifying experience out of the deeper shadows of his memory. Next, another fall in the Himalaya crippled and almost broke him. He felt forced to test his nerve again, and struggled on crutches to 20,000 feet on Pumori, near Everest. On his descent he heard that a young, first-time climber had been killed by a chance rockfall. What sense could he make now of this game of ghosts that had claimed the lives of so many of his friends over the years he had been climbing, while he had survived so many events that should have meant certain death? In an attempt to find catharsis for his confused emotions he wrote this e xtraordinary memoir, revealing his early life and his fifteen years of climbing on three continents, before and after the life-changing experience of Siula Grande. 

My Review: 
This book is much more biographical with Simpson going back in time to discuss his family, his childhood and his early climbing expeditions-Scottish winter climbing, the Dolomites, Mt Blanc and the Courtes. He faces up to danger in rockfalls and avalanches and has to start dealing with the deaths of climbing friends. He talks about his family not understanding why he chooses to risk his life but one of the most dangerous situations he faces is when he and his friends are attacked by a group of men after a dispute at a party, leaving his friends beaten and stabbed. It is the day after that Simon and Joe leave for the ill fated trip to Peru.

The book focuses a lot on the deaths of his friends on such different places as Scotland and on K2, showing that any climb can be dangerous, not just the biggest mountains. He also shares his experiences of facing down rabid dogs and having a drugged up driver take a group of them along the Karakoram Highway to get to a climbing opportunity. I know having a driver high on dope is dangerous but the description of the scene was so funny to read about! 

It was another entertaining and sobering look at the dangers of hill and mountain climbing.

Read February 2019
3 stars.