IN 1985 JOE SIMPSON broke his leg on his descent of a 20,000-foot mountain in the Peruvian Andes…
Then after a second fall left him dangling in midair off a cliff, his partner, Simon Yates, had no choice but to cut the rope that tied them together. Failure to cut the rope meant that gravity would eventually pull them both off the steep mountain face to their deaths.
The rope snapped with the touch of Yates’ blade and Simpson dropped into a long, narrow, vertical ice tube with no way to get to the top. His body came to rest precariously on a narrow ice bridge between two gaping vertical drops. He had two choices. He could either sit there until death slowly overtook his freezing body, or he could plunge into the dark unknown to meet death on his own terms. He had one ice screw left, which he banged into the wall of ice. The he threaded his rope through it and somehow managed to tie a crude knot in the end of it. This would be his anchor as he lowered his body into the deep, dark, icy unknown. He could not see the bottom of the ice tube — he could see only a cold, cruel, black hole. He had no idea if the end of the rope even touched the bottom. He purposely did not tie a knot in the end of the rope, which would have stopped his descent, preferring instead to plunge to his death rather than dangle in midair and slowly freeze to death.
To his surprise, his body eventually came to a rest on a flat surface of snow. But it turned out to be only an eggshell-thin layer of snow that was keeping gravity from sucking his body into the blackness. Then he saw a thin ray of light shining from the opposite side of the cavern. There was a 45-degree slope of ice leading up to where he could see a pinpoint of daylight. This was his way out – if only he could reach it.
He lay flat and shimmied gently across the thin layer of snow until he reached the other side of the cavern. But with a badly broken leg, the slope of ice looked impossible to climb.
He came up with a plan. He would bend over and dig a small foothold for each of his boots, which were equipped with crampons (metal claws) for climbing. Then he would pound his ice axes in the wall of ice above him and slowly lift his bad leg, then his good leg into the footholds, while pulling his body up with the ice axes. Each time he put weight on his bad leg, searing pain exploded up and down his leg. He would scream and curse out loud – his own words mocking him as they echoed through the hollow, frozen tube. Then he would repeat the process.
He made a decision to focus on the pattern rather than the pain. “The flares of pain became merged into the routine and I paid less attention to them, concentrating solely on the patterns.” He was so intent on focusing on the pattern that he refused to even look up to the object of his climb for fear that it would remind him of the little progress he had made and how far he still had to go. He knew where he was going, but it was more important to focus on the pattern. The pattern was working – one inch at a time, but it was working. After what seemed like an eternity, he popped his head up through the snow to see a ring of spectacularly beautiful mountains and blue sky. He had made it. But now he had to figure out a way to get down the rest of the mountain with a broken leg.
Simpson would be forced to repeat different patterns of behavior, standing, then falling forward, then crawling, then standing and falling forward again, for several days and nights without food or water. He would pick a spot in the distance and focus on it. Then he would give himself a deadline by which he had to get to it. When he finally got there, he would pick out another spot in the distance and repeat the pattern. Depending on the terrain, he would figure out a different pattern of movement that was most likely to push his body forward. Once he found the right pattern, he would simply focus on the pattern and repeat it over and over until he got to the next spot. It was a slow, agonizing process and his body got weaker and weaker as he went. Through the sheer force of his will and the voice inside his head that kept commanding his mangled body forward like a cruel drill sergeant, after several days, he finally got close enough to his campsite where his shouts could be heard. When his climbing partner found him, Simpson didn’t even look like himself. He face was bloody and scarred from falling repeatedly and from frostbite. His leg had swollen to almost the size of his waist. But he was alive.
What saved Joe Simpson was his decision to focus on a short, achievable goal and give himself a deadline to reach it. It was when he stopped pushing himself to get there by the deadline that he started to lose hope. He explains that his destination had become a “vague aim instead of a carefully planned objective. Without timing each stage, I had drifted aimlessly with no sense of urgency. Today it had to be different.”
What can we learn from Joe Simpson’s epic tale of survival?
1. In order to survive and prosper in times of adversity, you have to know what your final destination is and keep it always in your mind.
2. Break up the journey into small, achievable goals.
3. Experiment until you find a pattern of behavior that pulls you inch by inch closer to your goal.
4. Count on falling over and over while trying to find the right pattern. Then count on falling again even after you have found the right pattern. But make a decision to fall forward – in the direction of your goal.
5. If the goal seems impossible, focus on the pattern rather than the pain. Daniel R. Castro, “Heros Harvest Their Hidden Gifts,” Critical Choices That Change Lives, 130-133
KneEmail: 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14
Bible reading for 11.08.10: Hebrews 5; Jeremiah 43-45
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