Day 184 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Into Thin Air is Jon Krakauer’s personal account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster that claimed twelve lives. Hired to write an article for Outside magazine, Jon joined the 1996 Rob Hall team to document the commercialization of climbing the tallest mountain in the world. Krakauer is not just a writer, he is also a mountaineer, however up to 1996, he had no experience at extremely high altitudes. He trained for a year to be in shape for the climb then headed off to Nepal to begin the journey.

Though this book started out to be an article for Outside magazine (which was published in September 1996), the events that took place on May 10, 1996 caused Krakauer to want to dig deeper, to expound on his article and to correct some mistakes that were in his hurriedly written article.

Before I even picked up the book, I had seen a number of documentaries on Everest, including the much-publicized IMAX movie by the same name that happened to be filming just a week behind Krakauer’s team. I was quite familiar with the story of the tragedy, but being the kind of person that I am, I wanted to know more – more than can be presented in a 90-minute documentary.

I picked up this book because it is probably the most well-known of the books surrounding the infamous 1996 season; even a Hollywood movie was based on it (yes, I’ve seen that too). I really didn’t know much else about the author other than he had been there when it happened, many of his teammates had died, and he was a writer. First-hand experience is always a good thing in storytelling of this type, so let’s go.

Krakauer states up front that his article for the magazine contained errors. He also explains why: deadlines, suffering from oxygen depletion, etc. In order to correct this, and to do more justice to this tragic event, he interviewed most of the people at great length and at multiple times following the publication of the article.

I bring this up for two reasons: one, I like that he admitted that his initial article had mistakes and he wished to correct them; and two, at the end of the book there is a “new” afterword that he wrote in 1999 (two years after the release of the book) where he confronts attacks against his book by Anatoli Boukreev (one of the guides of Scott Fischer’s team) and G. Weston DeWalt who wrote Boukreev’s account in a book entitled The Climb. In the Postscript, Krakauer goes to great lengths showing where DeWalt didn’t interview the primary people or took what was given him and edited it to favor Boukreev’s story.

Though I have not read The Climb, the points that Krakauer brings up about the lack of facts and dutiful research seemed to be backed by others who were there in May 1996. Even though some defend various people who come across as having made huge mistakes, the primary people in this event seem to back Krakauer’s view as told in his book.

Anyway…

This book is fascinating. Krakauer does an amazing job of blending history, the challenges of climbing on ice and at high altitude, even footnoting what various equipment or maneuvers are for those of us who are clueless. It is written in almost a conversational English (swear words and all), and it is a page-turner.

He talks about the experience of the two main (and competing) guides, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer (who both died) as well as the lack of experience of others. He talks about the political and economic factors involved in climbing Everest (one route is entered upon from the Nepal side, the other from China)… and how this has skyrocketed the price of guided tours (the average today, seems to be about $65,000).

He talks about how all of the traffic on the mountain has caused it to become a garbage dump at 28,000 feet: oxygen tanks left behind by the hundreds, bodies of those who’ve attempted and failed (they don’t decompose because there’s hardly any oxygen).

He talks about the controversy over using supplemental oxygen to reach the summit, especially for the guides (one of major disagreements between his book and The Climb because Boukreev, a guide, led his group to the summit without gas and thus had to descend ahead of them, leaving them without someone to help if things got bad).

He talks about the various medical conditions that can arise from being at high altitudes and how they can be treated. He talks about Sherpa people (who are hired by the tour companies to haul everything up the mountain: food, tents, etc. leaving the “clients” with only the clothes on their backs and a backpack to haul).

Krakauer weaves all of this into the story of what unfolded on that mountain during the two months it took to climb it. Though he tries to be unbiased there is one person who despite his attempt to show both sides of the story, you can tell there’s no respect for this woman. A New York socialite named Sandy Pittman, arrived at base camp with all of the modern conveniences: two laptops, video camera, CD player, tape recorders, printer, her gourmet food and her espresso maker. Seriously. In the end, she had to be practically carried to the summit by one of the Sherpa men because she couldn’t walk on her own.

Besides her story (which gets even sicker) he tells of a team from South Africa whose leader, when others were attempting rescue runs, refused to loan his working radio to the rescuers. And that’s only the tip of his crimes.

There is just so much contained in these 300 pages, I’d have to just write the whole book in this blog. Even if you’re not interested in the debate over the commercialization of Everest, or even in the mountain itself, this story will grip you. The movie based on the book isn’t that great, but I do recommend the IMAX movie Everest as well as the NOVA documentary by the same name. Neither deals exclusively with the events of 1996, but rather discuss the mountain itself and the dangers of high altitude climbing in general. (The IMAX movie is especially spectacular to watch).

Anyway, I highly recommend Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It is a real-life adventure story of the highest magnitude.