Excerpted from Living Dangerously, by Joe Simpson

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“Sure, solid as rock,” Ian said confidently. “I gave it a few good kicks and it didn’t move.”

“Suppose you’re right.” I could see nothing suspicious about the pedestal. We had climbed past dozens of them all day.

An hour later, as Ian was preparing to do something smelly off his end of the ledge and I was zipped into my bivouac bag, there was a sickening lurch accompanied by the grinding sound of splintered granite plunging into the abyss. I had my arms outside the bivy bag as I fell and flailed blindly, trying to grab something. The drop must have taken only a fraction of a second but it seemed to last forever.

I heard a cry of alarm and pain above the roar as tons of granite went thundering down the pillar, echoed and then died to silence. The rope brushed my arms and I clamped them down by my sides as the falling stopped and I bounced on the springy stretch of the rope. The handrail had held and for a confused moment I desperately tried to remember whether I had clipped myself on to it. I was momentarily disorientated. Where was Ian? I remembered that sudden yelp during the fall. Had he gone with it?

“By ‘eck!” i heard close by in gruff Lancastrian. I struggled to get out of the tightly squeezed bag. Close beside me Ian’s head lolled down on to his shoulder and his torch reflected a sodium yellow light off the surrounding rock walls. There was blood on his neck.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Banged me ‘ead.” He groaned and then lifted his head.

“It’s okay,” I said, inspecting his matted hair, “It’s only a small hole.”

It took a while to realize that the whole pedestal had detached itself and dropped straight off the mountain face. There was a good deal of swearing before we became aware of the seriousness of our position. We hung side by side on the tightly stretched V of the handrail rope. Shining our torches down, we were horrified to see the remains of our two ropes, cut to pieces by the falling rocks. All our equipment, including our boots, had gone with the ledge.

We looked at each other and giggled nervously. No ropes. Two thousand feet up and no ropes!

The handrail shifted suddenly, causing us both to squeak with fright, hearts hammering at the thought of falling again. I turned and shone my torch on it. There was something wrong. I twisted round, grabbed the rope and hauled myself up towards the ring peg. The rope shifted again and the ring peg moved. I lowered myself gingerly back on to the rope.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“What?”

“The peg’s knackered. It’s coming out.”

“Christ! Where’s the gear, let’s put something in.”

“It’s gone. The hardware, boots, everything. We can’t do anything.”

Ian was silent. I looked at the flake above him to which the handrail had been tied off. Tiny pebbles trickled from the sheared off base of the flake where it had been attached to the pedestal. We were suspended against a smooth vertical rockwall. There were no handholds or small foot ledges and both attachment points could break at any moment. If either one went we would be hurled into the abyss.

“I think we had better stay very, very still.”

“Aye.” Ian muttered, taking a last swig from his water bottle and then flicking it into space. The tinny clangs of the metal bottle rang up from below in decreasing volume. There was nothing we could do.