Joe Simpson (mountaineer)

Joe Simpson (born 1960) is a British mountaineer, author and motivational speaker. While climbing in Peru in 1985 he suffered severe injuries and was assumed dead by his climbing companion Simon Yates after falling into a crevasse, but he survived and managed to crawl back to his base camp. He described the ordeal in his 1988 book Touching the Void, which was adapted into a 2003 documentary film and a 2018 stage play of the same name. He was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to a Scottish father and an Irish mother, where his father was stationed with the British Army, and from the age of eight he travelled between schools in Britain and the various countries where his father served.