The Simpson Incident: And Other Climbing Misadventures

By Hubert A Allen

This is an autobiography of an amature American climber and his misadventures.  Early misadventures in the 1970s occur in Illinois where the author accidentally causes the closing of buildering on a water plant, and slow motion details of his first leader fall Colorado. The Simpson Incident is the center piece of this book.  Each of th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hubert Allen and Associates
• Release date: Apr 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9780979274084

Hubert A Allen

Hubert A. Allen, Jr. was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1958. His younger brother, George, was just 15 months younger and became an important climbing partner. His younger sister, Lisa, was always supportive but a non-climber. The family moved to the Chicago area in the mid 1960s. The first taste of climbing came on vacations in Scottsdale, Arizona, scrambling up Camelback Mountain. During the summers of 1969-1972 he learned outdoor skills at Camp Nebagamon in Wisconsin. The author attended New Trier High School West between 1972-1976. The summer of 1973 he toured the American West with a group called Man and His Land - and discovered rock-climbing in the Tetons of Wyoming and mountaineering on Mt. Rainier.

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Hubert A. Allen, Jr.

The Simpson Incident:

And Other Climbing Misadventures

The Simpson Incident

And Other Climbing Misadventures

First Edition

Published by:

Hubert Allen and Associates

720-25 Tramway Lane, NE

Albuquerque, NM 87122 U.S.A.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the copyright owner.

Copyright © 2005 by Hubert A. Allen, Jr.

720-25 Tramway Lane, NE

Albuquerque, NM 87122

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13 978-0-9641694-2-5

ISBN 978-0-9792740-8-4 (e-book)

ISBN-10       0-9641694-2-8

To

The many climbing partners who led me here

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Early Misadventures

1On the Rocks, 1978

2Lubrication, 1979

Part 2: The Simpson Incident, 1981

3Into The Alps

4Raising the Bar Nash

5Encampment

6Argentière Way

7Great North Faces

8Joe

9Solo Dreams

10 Teamed

11 On the Ridge

12 Short-Cut Descent

13 Separate But Equal

14 A Crazy Ride

Part 3: Later Misadventures

15 Reviews of Peter Boardman’s Books, 1983

16 Risky Business, 1985

17 Close Call on Chambe Peak, 1986

18 Rock-Climbing Injuries in Yosemite NP, 1988

Sources and Permissions

Photo/Illustration Credits

Glossary

Introduction

In the summer of 1981, one year after completing a college degree, I traveled abroad to climb in the Alps. I was a young American climber going to Europe on a personal quest to retrace the beginnings of modern alpinism and to test myself.

My pilgrimage began with a climb of the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland. While the classic Hörnli Ridge route on this beautiful peak is no technical feat, I added spice by climbing the entire mountain unroped to within a few hundred feet of the summit, where I used the fixed lines for safety as I climbed over rocky blocks (thick strands of old-style manilla rope anchored to rusty pitons).

A final snowfield and I stood on the Swiss summit of the Matterhorn. I could see a religious cross on the Italian Summit in the near distance, no doubt a reminder that not all who reach the summit return safely to earth. Most of all I felt the weight of mountaineering history on the summit of the Matterhorn.

The descent was another matter. Minutes after reaching the top a snow squall engulfed the mountain and turned conditions to near white-out. The vistas of Europe’s greatest mountains disappeared like a dream upon waking, leaving me in a white haze.

All this way up the Matterhorn I had a shadow companion, a Japanese man I had met in the Zermatt campground. He was as stubborn as I in wanting to climb the mountain as freely as possible. Rather than simply ignore each other, we agreed to accompany one another, like brotherly neighbors, climbing in parallel and unroped up the Matterhorn. Thus two incidental solos came together-a duet.

Now, as the storm slammed into the Matterhorn we dropped the macho and became a team. Between us we had one rope and used it to descend via rappel off a series of rickety fixed piton anchors. Patiently, we succeeded in lowering ourselves several pitches to the Solvay Hut. The two of us entered this small wooden hut, glorious at the moment, and sat down in the small protected space out of the wind. My Japanese companion had grown icicles in his hair, and his cold lips were blue.

After we warmed up, just one more rappel led down a steep rock wall and to easier ground. Suddenly, the sun pushed away the clouds and beamed radiantly, dissolving all the stinging, icy needles from the storm above into a cooling, wet mist. For a few moments we sat still and silent. I felt like a living part of the Matterhorn, in perfect peace with the mountain and myself. Then we trotted and scrambled our way down the lower half of the climb and eventually to the Hörnli Hut at the base. There my Japanese friend and I congratulated each other and we parted for separate paths.

My climbing that summer also had me rock climbing in the Verdon Gorge, France, where I was dragged up a climb called Dingomaniaque by a skilled and generous team of French climbers, and I bouldered at smaller crags on the Riviera.

My second major mountain was in Grindelwald, Switzerland-no I did not solo the Eiger North Face! I did take the train up its insides. Perhaps I was mistaken for the Ugly American by the local guides on the train who snickered at my army surplus woolen pants and scruffy look, but I returned the favor not long after.

As soon as the train docked at the Sphinx Station, atop a high glacier, I headed out to solo the easy-looking but impressive South Face of the Mönch, marching out along a well-worn snow path at full speed. Most teams passed this elegant face of the Mönch and went up the much easier far ridge to the summit, turned around and descended the same way.

In my view, the elegant route was straight up the snowy South Face directly for the summit and then descend by the easy ridge. Crossing the crevasse at the base of the face, the so-called bergshrund, was tricky. I bridged a deep, narrow gouge in the ice and sunk my ice tools in slab ice at the bottom of the face before it shot up fairly steeply.

It felt great to be able to move quickly-no rope, no belay, no partner. Conditions were super, the snow/ice taking the bite of my ice tools like soft plastic. Then I got cooking, and soon a few hundred feet of ice and snow were below me and I was walking on a rounded summit with hard, packed, icy snow.

The sky was a dark blue with thin white clouds tattered by the high winds, making me feel just a step away from outer space. It was a perfect climbing moment, a mix of physical exhilaration, a good pump and the feeling of great personal strength and power. The success uncorked a mind wide open to all of life’s climbing possibilities. Soon the stiff wind invited me off the mountain top and I could see the backside of its neighbor, the Eiger, looking modest and hiding from view its terrible North Face.

I crossed over to the East Ridge descent and began plunking my way down the rocky trail. About a third of the way down a party climbing up from below me took stations to either side of the path, as is the mountain etiquette of the area, while the descending party, myself, passed without having to stop.

It was so nice to see the surprise on the faces of the very same guides who had mocked me on the train. Knowing, as they must have, that I soloed up the face and would be descending to the valley much before they would with their clients. This was the second feather in my climbing cap-The Mönch added to the Matterhorn, and both solos.

The Simpson Incident involved my third great alpine effort in the summer of 1981, the details of which are found in this book. My climb of Les Courtes with Joe Simpson was so impressive, that upon returning to America I wrote the story down within 45 days, just before shoving off for graduate school. Writing virtually the whole of the Simpson Incident you have here, but awkwardly in the third person.

Why? Well, in 1981 Joe Simpson was an unknown, not a celebrity climber, and I felt uncomfortable making it a first person narrative like so many self-serving climbing books (obviously left that behind!). Nonetheless, what was impressive besides that climb of Les Courtes itself was this guy, Joe Simpson; Joe THE character. After drafting the story in the fall of 1981, I tucked the typed pages into the boxes that would follow me for over twenty years, including living abroad in Malaŵi, Africa, from 1986-1989.

When I returned to America in 1989, I moved back to Baltimore, Maryland, where I had been in graduate school, a climber friend of mine began to tell me stories about this guy who had had a terrible accident in Peru, where his partner had to cut the rope he was hanging on, and the climber took a great fall, and had ended up crawling for days before rejoining his party at the last minute before they left camp. The story became the 1988 book Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. It was a handsome success.

With all the hub-bub about Void, I was sure our little incident