What makes someone go up some of the highest mountains in the world knowing that the slightest misjudgement could lead to their death and perhaps those of others too?
That question and many others was answered expertly, eloquently and with passion by Simon Yates, one of Britain’s leading mountaineers, who became a household name two decades ago with the release of acclaimed film-documentary ‘Touching the Void.’
Excuse the pun but Yates only lightly touched upon this aspect of his 40-plus years climbing the biggest peaks in the world during a 90-minute show at Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal.
He briefly explained that as he and his climbing partner Joe Simpson were ascending Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, disaster struck. Having climbed the then unconquered west face of the near 21,000ft peak, Simpson fell from an ice cliff, breaking his right leg and heel. Yates reacted by lowering Simpson down the mountain until they had almost reached the relative safety of the glacier when a storm worsened and Simpson fell again, this time over an unseen cliff edge.
Yates could not see or hear his partner and assumed he had fallen to his death so cut the rope, the umbilical cord between them. As ‘Touching the Void’ explains, Yates had no other choice.
Somehow, through an act of herculean strength and resolve, Simpson clambered through the crevasse and glacial field and arrived at Yates’ base camp four days later, very close to death.
Although Yates did not labour on this story, he did outline several others with a laconic, deadpan style. Born and raised in Leicestershire, Yates admitted he was not meant to become one of the world’s leading climbers, but nature called, as they say. After finishing his biochemistry studies in Sheffield in the 1980s Yates got the climbing bug and proceeded to travel the world, notching up one peak after another, a sort of high-octane Munro bagger.
Yates told some fascinating tales of life on the peaks of the earth in the Andes, Himalayas and Alaskan mountain ranges. He also recalled a bizarre trip to Antarctica, where Yates and his fellow climber managed one rope length, about 50 metres, before, yes, you guessed it, disaster struck yet again.
There was also an improbable airlift from the side of a mountain which almost went horribly wrong and yet even now, with a wife and two children, Yates cannot get rid of the itch to climb. Yates is in his 60s and should be hanging up his crampons, but there seems little chance of that.
A thoroughly invigorating and interesting show. Climbers must have a different DNA to many of us, as Richmond’s old racecourse (height 847ft) is about the limit for the likes of you and I.
Shame there wasn’t a chance for a Q and A with Yates, as that often throws up some illuminating insights, but that aside, a very enjoyable evening in a sold-out theatre.
