The Beckoning Silence

Joe Simpson:
This mountain, it's quite addictive. I've made six attempts on the face and got bad weather every single time. But it calls you. It... You know, I sort of had this phrase,'The Beckoning silence of great height' and what I was meaning by that was when you stand on the edge of a great drop, it's very difficult not to be absolutely staggered by it. When you look at a face like that and you're a mountaineer, you just want to go up there and play games on it.