Touching the Void Read Online Free

a heavy burden. We were taking a much larger selection of hardware than before. The bivi tent was far too cumbersome; we decided to leave it behind and rely on finding good snow holes instead. Even without the tent, the snow stakes, ice screws, crampons and axes, rock gear, stoves, gas, food and sleeping bags all amounted to a daunting load.
    Richard had decided to accompany us as far as the glacier, and we got away next morning at a steady pace under a hot sun. After an hour we reached the beginning of the glacier and started up a steep gully between the lower glacier moraines and a shield of ice-worn rock that formed the left bank of the glacier. Mud and rubble gave way to a jumble of boulders and scree. It was awkward scrambling round and over these obstacles, some of which were many times the size of a man, and it was all the more difficult with large sacks on our backs. Richard kept up well after two weeks at high altitude but a bristling series of ice spikes and mud-smeared glacier ice, visible from where we rested, presented a formidable obstacle to him in lightweight walking shoes. To get past, and up on to the glacier, we would have to negotiate a short, steep, ice cliff some 80 to 100 feet high. Large rocks were balanced precariously above the line of ascent.
    ‘I don’t think you should come any further,’ Simon said. ‘We could get you up there, but not back again.’
    Richard looked around ruefully at the barren view of mud and perched boulders. He had been hoping for something more impressive than this. The West Face of Siula was not yet in view. ‘I’ll take your pictures before you go,’ he announced. ‘You never know, I might make a fortune selling them as obituary photos!’
    ‘Much appreciated, I’m sure!’ Simon muttered.
    We left him there among the boulders. From our position high above on the ice cliffs he looked forlornly abandoned. He was in for a lonely time.
    ‘Take care!’ wafted up to us from cupped hands below.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Simon shouted, ‘we don’t intend sticking our necks out. We’ll be back in time. See you!
    The lonely figure was soon lost amid the boulders as we headed up towards the first crevasses, where we put on our crampons and roped up. The heat of the glacier was intense under the glare reflected from icy mountain walls. There was not a breath of wind. The glacier edge was cracked and contorted, and we looked back at our route so as to fix the features in our minds. Neither of us wanted to forget it on the way down. Our tracks would certainly have disappeared under fresh snow by then, and it was important to know whether to go below or above the crevasses when we returned.
    As a cold clear night came over the mountains we were cosily ensconced in our snow hole beneath the face. It would be a freezing early-morning start tomorrow.

TWO
    Tempting Fate
    It was cold. Five-in-the-morning cold, on a high Andean glacier. I struggled with zips and gaiters until my fingers would not work, and I rocked back and forward, hands in my crotch, moaning with the hot aches. It had never been this bad before, I thought, as the pain in my fingers fired up, but then I always thought that with hot aches. So damned painful.
    Simon grinned at my agony. I knew that once warmed up I wouldn’t get the aches again. It was some consolation.
    ‘I’ll go first, shall I?’ Simon said, knowing he had me at a disadvantage. I nodded miserably, and he set off up the avalanche cone above our snow hole towards the icefield which reared up in blue early-morning ice.
    Right then, this was it! I looked at Simon leaning above the small crevasse at the base of the face and planting his ice axe firmly into the steep ice wall above. The weather looked perfect. No telltale cloud front running a storm this time. If it held we’d be up and half-way down before the next bad spell.
    I stamped my feet, trying to get my boots warmed up. Fragments of ice tinkled down on to my shoulders as Simon hammered