Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but marred by death. He
has endured the painful attrition of climbing friends in accidents, calling int
o question the perilously exhilarating activity to which he has devoted his life
. Probability is inexorably closing in.
The tragic loss of a close friend for
ces a momentous decision upon him. It is time to turn his back on the mountains
that he has loved. Never more alive than when most at risk, he has come to see a
last climb on the hooded, mile-high North Face of the Eiger as the cathartic fi
nale.
In a narrative which takes the reader through extreme experiences, from
an avalanche in Bolivia, ice-climbing in the Alps and Colorado and paragliding
in Spain - before his final confrontation with the Eiger - Simpson reveals the i
nner truth of climbing, exploring both the power of the mind and the frailties o
f the body. The subject of his new book is the siren song of fear and his strugg
le to come to terms with it.
