If you have watched Touching the Void over the past 11 days in the Afternoon Matinee, you know Joe Simpson's amazing story. As someone who has had my share of leg and foot problems in my life, it is more than hard for me to fathom how he endured the pain in order to survive.
During a good deal of August and a fair part of September, I suffered from a significant amount of inflammation in my diseased left hip. It left me no alternative than to use my cane to get around. Even then, the pain was searing and I struggled to limp from the living room to the kitchen or bathroom. I can't begin to imagine how I possibly could have walked down my hill (3 blocks in length) to the library or post office, let alone crawl thousands of feet down the side of an ice and rock strewn mountain!!
The closest -- and it ain't really close at all -- to understanding a scintilla of what Simpson went through was when I hiked up and down a mountain with a broken big toe and foot (the knuckle below the big toe on my right foot). The year was 1979 and I was a member of an initial attack crew with the US Forest Service.
I had broken my toe/foot at Fire School. I was supposed to be off work for a month, but I had grown stir crazy after less than a week. So, I had convinced my crew leader to allow me to report back to work on light duty. One of these duties was driving one of our crew trucks and I quickly taught myself to drive left-footed.
Two days after returning to work -- against my doctor's advice, I might add -- we were called out to work a fire in the remote Eagle Cap Wilderness in the rugged Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon. Because the fire was in a federally-designated wilderness area, planes were not allowed to dump anything on the fire. Even worse, the road ended three or four miles below the fire; this meant we had to hike in.
Since the call came while we were out on trail clean-up duty, I was stuck. There was no way for me to get back to town, so I had to go with the crew to the fire. I can still remember the agony I went through climbing the mountain to get to the blaze. Every step of my right foot felt like a rod was being shoved into my heel. The only other time I can remember being in such agony was when I had a gall bladder attack!
My entire foot ballooned up in my thick leather work boot to the point that, when I finally struggled to the top of the mountain, I couldn't get my boot off. I was only able to get a little relief the next day when I hiked several hundred yards below the fire location to a snow-fed creek and I soaked my badly swollen foot in it for a good thirty minutes.
We didn't have any painkillers with us and so I struggled to work 18-hour shifts on a mangled right foot. We stayed on top of that mountain for 4 1/2 days putting out a 1 acre fire with next to no water. By the time we were finished and then hiked back down the mountain to our waiting trucks, I could hardly put any weight at all on my right leg.
I was so overjoyed when we got back to down and received a few days off. I laid in bed with my foot elevated -- what my doctor had advised all along -- and wrapped in ice.
Yet, for all I went through back then, it is nothing compared to what Simpson endured in Touching the Void!!! Not even close. So, I feel in complete awe of him.
Later this month I will show another documentary, The Beckoning Silence, which features Joe Simpson in a story of mountain climbing and death.
During a good deal of August and a fair part of September, I suffered from a significant amount of inflammation in my diseased left hip. It left me no alternative than to use my cane to get around. Even then, the pain was searing and I struggled to limp from the living room to the kitchen or bathroom. I can't begin to imagine how I possibly could have walked down my hill (3 blocks in length) to the library or post office, let alone crawl thousands of feet down the side of an ice and rock strewn mountain!!
The closest -- and it ain't really close at all -- to understanding a scintilla of what Simpson went through was when I hiked up and down a mountain with a broken big toe and foot (the knuckle below the big toe on my right foot). The year was 1979 and I was a member of an initial attack crew with the US Forest Service.
I had broken my toe/foot at Fire School. I was supposed to be off work for a month, but I had grown stir crazy after less than a week. So, I had convinced my crew leader to allow me to report back to work on light duty. One of these duties was driving one of our crew trucks and I quickly taught myself to drive left-footed.
Two days after returning to work -- against my doctor's advice, I might add -- we were called out to work a fire in the remote Eagle Cap Wilderness in the rugged Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon. Because the fire was in a federally-designated wilderness area, planes were not allowed to dump anything on the fire. Even worse, the road ended three or four miles below the fire; this meant we had to hike in.
Since the call came while we were out on trail clean-up duty, I was stuck. There was no way for me to get back to town, so I had to go with the crew to the fire. I can still remember the agony I went through climbing the mountain to get to the blaze. Every step of my right foot felt like a rod was being shoved into my heel. The only other time I can remember being in such agony was when I had a gall bladder attack!
My entire foot ballooned up in my thick leather work boot to the point that, when I finally struggled to the top of the mountain, I couldn't get my boot off. I was only able to get a little relief the next day when I hiked several hundred yards below the fire location to a snow-fed creek and I soaked my badly swollen foot in it for a good thirty minutes.
We didn't have any painkillers with us and so I struggled to work 18-hour shifts on a mangled right foot. We stayed on top of that mountain for 4 1/2 days putting out a 1 acre fire with next to no water. By the time we were finished and then hiked back down the mountain to our waiting trucks, I could hardly put any weight at all on my right leg.
I was so overjoyed when we got back to down and received a few days off. I laid in bed with my foot elevated -- what my doctor had advised all along -- and wrapped in ice.
Yet, for all I went through back then, it is nothing compared to what Simpson endured in Touching the Void!!! Not even close. So, I feel in complete awe of him.
Later this month I will show another documentary, The Beckoning Silence, which features Joe Simpson in a story of mountain climbing and death.
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