Simon McCartney
AUTHOR

Simon McCartney

Sports & Outdoors
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Simon McCartney was born in London, in 1955. As a cocky young British alpinist he enjoyed the climbing season of his life as sorcerer's apprentice to the vastly experienced Dave Wilkinson in 1977. In a Chamonix bar, a chance meeting with Californian climber Jack Roberts was the begging of a climbing partnership that would change their lives forever. In 1978 the pair travelled to Alaska and made the first ascent of the North Face of Mount Huntington, a climb so dangerous it has never been repeated. As is often the case in such dangerous pursuits, each guarding the life of the other, a strong life-long connection was formed. In the following winter McCartney settled an old score with the Eiger, making a winter ascent of the north face with Chris Hoyland. Simon and Jack teamed up again for a much larger project in Alaska, to make the first ascent of the south west face of Denali. To attempt such a climb in alpine style we ground breaking, utterly committed and unable to retreat once begun, their only chance of survival was success. In the epic ascent that followed things went terribly wrong in a series of mishaps, starvation and illness that made their survival unlikely. Only a high altitude twist of fate was to save them. After Denali Simon quit climbing and the lives of the pair diverged. Jack followed the climber's life and Simon turned to a business life in Australia and Hong Kong where he is a partner in Illumination Physics, a company that specializes in lighting tall buildings around the world. Both Jack and Simon spent the next 32 years wondering what had happened to the other. In 2012, another twist of fate would reconnect the bond between them. There are three international awards for literature in which mountaineering is a theme. The Boardman Tasker award for Mountain Literature, The Banff Festival prize for Mountain Literature and the Trento Festival Premio ITAS award for a mountain narrative. The Bond has won all of them. In the case of the Italian translation, the title is Il Legame. The Bond has also been published in French as Les Fantomes du Denali.
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