:48:15
It was getting light, as it was 5 or 6.
:48:20
And I started screaming
Simon's name again.
:48:29
I got myself up, got dressed inside the
snow home and packed everything away,
:48:39
Just a horrible feeling of dread.
:48:41
By this stage, I strongly felt that
Joe had been killed the previous day.
:48:45
And that now I was going to
die, as some form of retribution.
:48:53
But rather than just sit here,
feeling sorry for myself or whatever,
:48:58
"I'll get on with it and
I'll die on the way down".
:49:06
Very quickly, the ground
dropped away steeply.
:49:08
So I skirted around this
area of steeper ground.
:49:19
As I abseiled down, I could
see this overhanging ice cliff,
:49:22
which was what I had lowered him over,
:49:25
so I knew that he'd had
actually been hanging in space,
:49:27
which is the reason he couldn't
get his weight off the rope.
:49:33
And as I went down lower,
I could see to my horror,
:49:36
that the base of this ice cliff
was an absolutely enormous crevice,
:49:42
that's 12m wide and just bottomless
from where I was looking at it.
:49:53
SIMON!
:49:56
He would have been up with
first light, I thought.
:49:57
'Cause I was desperately,
desperately thirsty.