Touching the Void (book) Touching the Void (book) Touching the Void is a 1988 book by Joe Simpson, recounting his and Simon Yates' successful but disastrous and nearly fatal climb of the 6,344-metre (20,813 foot) Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. It has sold over a million copies and has been translated into over 20 languages. In 2013 the 25th Anniversary eBook edition of Touching the Void was published by DirectAuthors.com. It features additional photography from the expedition. Simpson and Yates reach the summit of the previously unclimbed West Face of Siula Grande. Upon descent, Simpson slipped down an ice cliff and
Fire on the Mountain (book) Smokejumpers, Roger Roth and James Thrash, and two members of a Helitack crew, Richard Tyler and Rob Browning. "Fire on the Mountain," won the Mountain and Plains Booksellers award as the best non-fiction book of 1999. It was made into an eponymous two-hour documentary by the History Channel that was a finalist for an Emmy award and won the Cine Master's Award as the best documentary of 1999. John N. Maclean's father Norman Maclean wrote "Young Men and Fire" that told a very similar story about the Mann Gulch Fire of August 1949 and the 13 men who died there.