This Game of Ghosts

When Simon Yates cut the rope and sent his friend plummeting to an ordeal few mountaineers can have contemplated, the outcome was totally unpredictable. That Joe Simpson survived 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 experien...