Читать книгу Extreme Survivors: 60 of the World’s Most Extreme Survival Stories - Collins Maps - Страница 49

Born in 1960, Joe Simpson discovered his natural climbing ability in the hills outside his boyhood home of Sheffield. At 14 he read The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer, a classic mountaineering text about the first climb of the North Face of the Eiger. It fanned the flames of a passion that would push him on to ever harder ascents in the mountains of Scotland, the Alps, the Himalaya and the Andes.

In 1985, Joe Simpson was in Peru with his climbing partner Simon Yates to make a first ascent of the West Face of Siula Grande (6,344 m; 20,813 ft). With them was Richard, a traveller they had met in Lima. They trekked for two days to set up their base camp by a glacial lake. From there they would walk in and climb the peak while Richard took photos of the mountains and looked after their camp.