The Red Bulletin February/March 2020 (UK)

Unstoppable force: Simpson climbs the North Spur of the 6,162m-high Ranrapalca in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range in 1994
The escape
I tried to climb up, but I couldn’t.
When I looked down, I could see
only darkness. This crevasse was
a bergschrund – the separation
between the glacier and the mountain
base. They can be 50ft or 500ft deep.
I didn’t have the courage to just jump
off. I clipped my abseil device, but I
deliberately chose not to tie a knot in
the end of the rope; I thought, “Look,
if I get down there and I’m hanging
in space, why would I want to climb
back up and spend six days dying?”
About 70ft below, avalanches
had created a choke point and
a slope that was probably 65°. On
this unconsolidated snow, I could
manage that with hopping jumps.
I wasn’t considering how to survive,
just how to get out. If I was going to
die, I wanted to do it in sunlight.
Slow crawl
I stuck my head out of the crevasse
at about one o’clock in the afternoon
and sat there giggling manically. I
saw Simon’s rope off to the left; he’d
abseiled down the glacier. I now knew
I was on my own – you don’t come
back for a corpse. That was a sobering
moment. I was a long way from base
camp: a mile and a half of crevasse
glacier, then six-and-a-half miles of
moraines [mounds of debris left by
“I was just
crawling to
the end of
the end game,
to die there”
glaciers] and rocks. When you’re
trying to survive, the last thing you
need is emotion: it’s a waste of energy.
Part of me was pragmatic, thinking
how far I could go, what state my body
was in, and how little food I had. My
conclusion was, “You won’t make it.”
But I thought, “If you die here, you’ll
be buried in snow and disappear for
ever. Nobody will ever know what’s
happened to you.” I crawled for the
next three-and-a-half days.
Survival mode
When you’re alone for a long time –
no data coming in, no conversations,
nothing to read or see – your mind
drifts. I would think I’d rested for
five minutes, but then I’d look at my
cheap, crappy watch and 45 minutes
had gone by. I went, “Right, I’m going
to get to that crevasse in 20 minutes.
28 THE RED BULLETIN