Joe Simpson
Joe Simpson was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on August 13th, 1960 and is the Mountain Climber. At the age of 63, Joe Simpson biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 63 years old, Joe Simpson physical status not available right now. We will update Joe Simpson's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.
In 1985, Simpson and climbing partner Simon Yates made a first ascent of the previously unclimbed West Face of Siula Grande (6,344 m) in the Cordillera Huayhuash of the Peruvian Andes. On the descent, Simpson badly broke his right leg in a fall, rendering it unusable. Yates attempted to rescue Simpson by roping the pair together, with Yates lowering Simpson as far down the mountain as their rope would allow, before descending himself, and repeating the process. The pair managed to descend around 3,000ft (910m) using this method, and began to feel as though the situation was back under control. However, as weather conditions deteriorated and visibility diminished, Yates unknowingly lowered Simpson over the edge of a cliff. Simpson could not climb up the rope, and it was impossible for Yates to pull him up due to his own precarious position. After over an hour of the men being stuck in this situation, and with no way for the two to communicate, Yates cut the rope to avoid being pulled off the mountain himself, causing Simpson to plummet into a crevasse below. The next morning, Yates completed the descent, and after seeing nor hearing anything, he assumed Simpson to be dead so made his way back to camp. Simpson, however, survived the fall due to a ledge that stopped him falling to the bottom of the crevasse, and managed to find a way out. He crawled and climbed out, and then continued crawling for miles back to camp. The journey from crevasse to camp took him four days. After they returned to Britain, Yates received some criticism for having cut the rope, however Simpson has always defended his decision.
Simpson published an article about the Siula Grande ordeal in the climbing press shortly afterwards, and later wrote the best-selling book Touching the Void. The book has been translated into 23 languages and has sold almost two million copies worldwide. Simpson wrote further about the Siula Grande expedition in his book This Game of Ghosts as did Yates in his book Against the Wall. A film based on the book was released in 2003. It takes the form of a docudrama with climbing sequences filmed in the European Alps and the Peruvian Andes together with interviews with Simpson, Yates and the third member of the expedition Richard Hawking (a non-climber).
Simpson underwent six surgical operations as a result of the leg injuries sustained on Siula Grande. The doctors told him he would never climb again and that he would have trouble walking for the rest of his life. After two years of rehabilitation, however, he returned to mountain climbing.
His later non-fiction books describe other expeditions and his changing feeling towards extreme mountaineering brought on by the many deaths that surround the pursuit. A bad fall broke Simpson's left ankle while climbing with Mal Duff in 1991 on Pachermo in Nepal, and is described in his third book This Game of Ghosts. Simpson also made six unsuccessful attempts on the North Face of the Eiger from 2000 to 2003 with his regular climbing partner Ray Delaney, all of which had to be aborted due to bad weather. One of his books, The Beckoning Silence, was made into a documentary shown on Channel 4 in October 2007. The book won the 2003 National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature category).