Product Description

Simon Yates is the man who cut the rope in Joe Simpson's award-winning account of their struggle for survival in "Touching the Void". In this book, Yates recounts how he and three companions climbed the world's largest vertical rock-face, in the Chilean Andes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53744 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From the Back Cover
Simon Yates is 'the one who cut the rope' in Joe Simpson's award-winning account of their epic struggle for survival in Touching the Void. Afterwards, Yates continued mountaineering on the hardest routes. Perhaps the most testing of all was one of the world's largest vertical rockfaces, the 4, 000-ft East Face of the Central Tower of Paine in Chile. Battered by ferocious storms and almost crippled with fear just below the summit, Yates and his three companions are forced into a nightmare retreat. After resting in a nearby town, they return to complete the climb, but Yates knows he still has to face one of life's greatest challenges...
'In recent years, self-examination has lined up with crampons, belays and jumaring as a standard component of mountaineering literature. Against the Wall is a beguiling mix of all these things, blended with honesty in a workmanlike, solid prose style. It is an engaging book, both the story of another great climb and a wistful acknowledgement that nothing, in any area of our lives, is ever quite what it seems' Sara Wheeler, Literary Review

About the Author
Simon Yates has climbed extensively in the Himalayas and the Andes, and travelled through India, Kazakhstan and Australia. His first book, Against the Wall, was runner-up for the Boardman Tasker Award for mountain literature.

Customer Reviews

High Anxiety
I wasn't too sure about this book in the beginning as I began to suspect that Simon had been on some sort of writing course before it. He writes in quite short sentences. Almost keeping it simple and manageable. Being careful not to drift from the point. Once I got into the story, however, I forgot about the style and in the end I felt I had more of an idea into how these types of vertical wall climbs are conducted. Simon is quite frank about his own vulnerability, describing how he retches with fear over some of the dangerous moves he has to commit to on the climb. This vulnerability increases as the expedition extends, and I enjoyed his introspection and conclusion that his addiction has to be kept in balance before it kills him. There's no romance in it - like anything else out of balance, it can seriously detract from your life as you lose friends, roots, family and eventually identity. The writing becomes tinged with disappointment and depression in this search for understanding, but he comes through it and is uplifted in the end.
This is not a typical climbing book, but I found it to be a more balanced account of the climber, what he does and why he has chosen to do it than many others.

This book should be on any would be mountaineers list
Simon Yates, The man who cut the rope, Knows better than anyone the difficult decisions one must be prepared to make in order to survive on the remotest of mountain ranges.One of the most difficult decisions to make can be the most straight forward of all Do I want to do this? . Simon is the only author to my knowledge who has posed this question in print, yet probably it is the secret question that every climber asks him/herself when faced with the task they have set themselves ( or been pursuaded into). To go or not to go ? After perhaps weeks if not months of preparation, simply to have doubts on a route and question the reason for, takes an extraordinary amount of inner strength. Simon Yates eloquently relates his thoughts into text and any climber or would be expedition member will benefit from reading this book.

Thought provoking...
Simon's description of his attempt to summit the Central Tower of Paine in Patagonia was slightly disappointing to me in its lack of emotional description. He does describe the technical difficulties of climbing a vertical rock face very well, enabling readers to envisage just what an enormous undertaking this is. As I read the book through, I felt I was always waiting for something more from Simon, but it never really happened. He writes well how he comes to realise that climbing the summit is not worth risking his life for, but this also makes the book ending slightly flat. I have read far better written mountaineering / adventure books.