Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

I had no idea what shelf to put this on. So I made up a new one, lacking the number of characters needed, this shelf should be called, true stories about things I would never do or try to do. But maybe that is a lie. Like Krakauer I too have had a near death experience while engaged in 'climbing', like the doomed people in this book, my own life was possibly endangered by faulty decisions made by those who are being paid to know better. My own experience is pretty undramatic, and was rectified in a few moments, and possibly if my parents had been the litigious sorts I could have bankrupted the Boy Scouts, and still be suing them for the experience and blame every anxiety and problem I have on this moment. That would be a huge lie though (my own experience was at summer camp, I didn't want to rappel, but I was talked into trying it, I was tied in, and as I stepped backwards over the lip so that I was on the vertical part of the rock the knots on my harness and carabiener started coming undoing themselves. I freaked. Some teenage kid had tied me in who was assisting the guy in charge. The real guy in charge retied my harness, I for some reason decided to try it again and actually enjoyed it, not that I ever did it again after that, and probably will never try it again).

Seriously though, this book is about people doing something really dangerous and paying the price for it. It's pretty fucked up on all kinds of different levels, and anyone knowing what it's like to climb into the danger zone of high altitude and then goes and does it anyway so that they can say they have stood on the top of the highest mountain of the world, you can't feel too sorry for (or I can't). Sure it's a testament to the human spirit to overcome obstacles, and being able to do this is something I know I would never be able to do (or want to do), and it's pretty amazing that people can do what it takes to climb these high mountains, but it's also really dangerous and people die doing things like this all the time (historically up until 1996, 3% of all people who climbed just above base camp on Everest died, that's not even necessarily the people who made it all the way up to the final reaches near the summit where the events of this book took place).

What I took from this book is that accidents happen, and they can be awful. That being in really high altitudes seriously fucks with you in ways I had no idea about. I also learned that maybe man shouldn't fuck with nature so much for profit, and that maybe commercialization of things alters the perception of real risks involved. Nature and high altitude don't realize that just because you paid big bucks for the ride up to the top that they should lay off and let your trip be like Club Med. I also learned that certain South African's are dicks, and sadly they didn't get to play as much of a role in the narrative as other groups of people, which is a bit sad because there was something absurdly funny about them.

Life got you down? Then join us on a guided expedition led by Capital Idiocy Inc. as we climb to...

n  The Summit of MOUNT EVERESTn

For the bargain price of $65,000,[1] we will take you on the adventure of a lifetime full of scenic views,[2] camaraderie,[3] and athleticism.[4]

Worried that you lack the necessary climbing experience?
Don’t be discouraged![5] While Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, it is not the most technically challenging climb. And in addition to our expertise and mentorship, we will have the support of the local populace, the Sherpa, to handle the basic logistical arrangements so that you can focus on the prize.[6]

Never been above sea level?
Don’t sweat it! We will prepare you for the high altitudes with our carefully developed Acclimatization Program.[7]

Sensitive to the cold?
We have you covered…with the best protective clothing available![8]

When the time is right,[9] we’ll organize the final push to the summit where you will enjoy the exhilaration of being the King/Queen of the world.[10]

Remember your safety and health are our top priority![11]

What are you waiting for? There is limited space! Call us today at 1-800-YOU-DEAD to sign up.[12]

-----------------------
[1] Does not include airfare to Nepal and subsequent FedEx expenses when we return your personal belongings to your grieving spouse in [insert idyllic American town here].

[2] Just avert your eyes from the dead bodies along the trail. They have been there for years. Honestly, after the first one, you won’t notice them anymore.

[3] Well, most of the people are great. Some of them suck big time…when it matters most too. They’ll pass you over for dead THREE TIMES before they put some effort into helping you.

[4] Just kidding! We’ll provide bottled oxygen at the higher altitudes.

[5] Seriously, zero experience is required. We’ll take anyone.

[6] That’s an understatement! We would be screwed without these guys. They cook, carry the heaviest loads, and lay out the ropes. Essentially they take care of the most dangerous tasks for a fraction of what we pay our Western guides. Plus they always have a delicious, steaming cup of tea ready when you reach your tent.

[7] It really is a good program. But you can never be 100% sure how high altitude will affect individuals. We’ll do our best to help if you develop High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) where your brain starts leaking fluids, but remember at the top of a mountain, there is only so much we can do. And again, that’s not much.

[8] But it’s still damn cold up there. And if a storm hits and you cannot find your way back to camp? Oh boy! Get ready for a windchill exceeding 100 below zero. And frostbite. Lots of frostbite. Plus what good is all that gear when people keep losing their mittens and we find the deceased half-stripped?

[9] Did you not read the previous footnote? Storms. They can come out of nowhere.

[10] For a few minutes at least. Plus we use the verb “enjoy” loosely. You won’t have slept or eaten properly for days. You’ll be physically spent. And with your severely handicapped mental capabilities, you may not even realize where you are. Heck, you may not even be at the top in actuality! Some losers mistakenly thought they’d reached the top and placed all their trinket flags. They were off by a good 500 feet. (Plus they died on the way down. Double losers.)

[11] Now that’s just a lie. Our number one priority is getting you to the summit, no matter the risks. Otherwise you’ll run home and whine that we turned you around 200 feet from the top. You won’t think to thank us that you are alive to do said whining. And you’ll hurt business. Plus it’s hard as hell to keep you safe up there and you won’t be one quota of help. And health? Ha! You can hardly hold us accountable for the intestinal parasites you’ll contract in that camp where everyone shits in the open.

[12] Having second thoughts? Look, why don’t you read Into Thin Air instead? You can read it at home in your bed, safe and warm. The author, that crazy guy, already climbed Mount Everest for you. He reminds me of travel writer, Bill Bryson with his accessible, factual, and tension-filled writing, minus the humor. Because climbing Mount Everest is not funny. Vicariously, that’s the only way I recommend climbing this one.

When I picked up this book, I thought it was going to be Jon merely researching and giving account of what happened on a Mount Everest hike as a journalist, not as someone who climbed the mountain. Lo and behold, he did!! Reason number #93824 why I could never be a journalist--it requires such menial tasks as, oh i don't know, CLIMBING MOUNT EVEREST??!?!?!?!

That aside, this book captured me. I know very little about hiking Everest other than the documentary on Netflix, so this gave a good overview. Because it was centered on what went wrong with the tragedy though, I think Jon's personal experience took a backseat to fleshing out the lives of everyone he climbed with, which ultimately weighed this book down for me. There was a cast of 30+ people who I honestly could not keep straight, especially not while listening to this on audio where names don't tend to stick very easily. In creating a woven narrative of each person's trek and how they would or would not end up getting off the mountain became laborious to remember and decode. The characterization wasn't stark enough for me to be able to really differentiate between any of the people.

Additionally, I liked how this book showed the physical labor and technology required to hike the mountain, but this book is now 20+ years old, and I think it would be cool to read a more recent account of what hiking Everest is like with our new technology. I think I watched a snapchat story once of somebody climbing it and their adventures everyday. It seems like it would be a totally different game than what occurred in this book.

Krakauer's writing style remains magnificent. The way he explores timelines and cause and effect was equally as meticulous. My biggest issue with this is that I just didn't feel there on the trip with him, equally from a lack of physical description and the feeling like I didn't fully understand who was who and where we were.

3.5 Having finished this I can say with absolute confidence that mountain climbing is about as desirable an activity as surgery without anesthesia. And about as smart as well. Now given that I experience anxiety just looking over a second story balcony, I was never going to be the person that thought climbing Mount Everest was ever a good idea but Krakauer writes a compelling case that maybe no one should. That the person who enjoys mountain climbing (seriously they exist!) is perhaps at greater risk to be dead now due to how commercialized and expensive it’s become to climb it. It pushes people to press on despite their bodies telling them absolutely not. So, reading this, you can see that it’s a disaster waiting to happen. When a climber has a long line of people ahead of them waiting to ascend, then surely they must realize they’re not really achieving anything singular or amazing so why do they do it? Having read the book, I’m no closer to understanding why anyone would risk their life in such a way.

I will say for the first few chapters I was not getting along with this book. There was so much detail, more than I thought necessary honestly, and I seriously considered dnffing but I hung in there and towards the second half of the book I was able to engage with the narrative. Krakauer takes a lot of care trying to get the story straight and to remain objective despite the culpability he feels in the deaths of some of the members of his team. I think, in his drive to understand and share his story it loses some of its focus in the beginning with a lot of info that seemed to bog the book down. It was a curious reading experience to read a dispassionate objective account of a subject the author was involved in and obviously felt so passionately about. I’ll be interested to see if the reading experience is similar or different with Into the Wild.

Does your dream holiday involve spending north of fifty grand to risk a fatal aneurysm, walk past the dead bodies of weaker adventurers who’ve come before you and possibly lose your fingers, toes and nose, if not your life? If so, then step right up to climb Mount Everest!

Seriously though, If you’ve ever thought you might like to climb Everest, read this book. If you still want to attempt the highest mountain in the world after finishing Into Thin Air, you are a braver person than I.

This is a masterful account of an adventure-turned-disaster that cost the lives of eight people, and scarred (both physically and psychologically) the lucky survivors.

If you've read Joe Simpson’s Touching The Void you have some understanding of the horrors of mountaineering gone wrong. Into Thin Air similarly deals with a climbing catastrophe but with the horrifying struggle consuming an entire group of climbers instead of a lone individual.

Jon Krakauer, a seasoned mountaineer, joined a 1996 expedition to Everest with experienced guides who had reached the mountaintop on numerous occasions with previous groups.

You would think that only the best of the best attempt Everest. The toughest, fittest, most experienced mountain-crazy hardasses out there. Alas, you would be wrong. As Krakauer details, the guides that led people up the mountain often weren’t as picky as they should have been, as theirs is a business like any other, and a need for customers led to many expeditions shepherding weaker sheep up the perilous slopes of the Himalayas.

What follows is a sad tale of bad luck, bad judgement, and many, many massive screw-ups that lead to eight people dying awful deaths in the snow after getting caught in bad weather and simply running out of strength in ‘The Death Zone’ (doesn’t that sound like a fantastic holiday location? The South of France has nothing on Everest) above 8000 meters, where even the strongest person can have unpredictable and fatal reactions to the low air pressure.

Krakauer writes with clarity and humanity, giving us a window seat to how everything goes so wrong, and both the heroism and foolishness that occurs in such trying circumstances. He doesn’t shy away from his own feelings of guilt, and the way that what happened on the upper reaches of Everest has impacted his life.

Into Thin Air is a gripping, terrifying and informative story that taught me more about mountaineering and its risks than any other book I’ve read. It’s an amazing story, both well told and memorable. Read this book, and prepare to shiver in imagined cold as you walk with Krakauer through the middle of a sub-zero high-altitude disaster.

Postscript: I read this book as I headed to Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas. Krakauer discusses in detail the effect that high altitude can have on perception, memory and the ability to focus, and when I stopped at a driveable pass on my trip that reached 5600m I experienced this firsthand. Within minutes I felt nauseous, disassociated from my surroundings, and in need of some serious sleep. How anyone dares to face the perils of altitudes above six kilometres is beyond me.

There’s no way this book was going to be anything less than riveting. Remote terrain, extreme conditions, conflicting personalities, inconceivable levels of survival and resilience, the intrigue and unpredictably of the highest point on Earth…it’s all there. Jon Krakauer shares his account of the tragic 1996 Everest climbing season. As a climber himself, he is invited to join a guided ascent of Mount Everest in connection with his reporting for Outside magazine on the commercialization of Everest and the related controversies. The combination of Krakauer being both a journalist by trade and an experienced mountaineer makes this an extremely readable and engrossing memoir.

The story is heartbreaking and tragic, but it was also a little maddening. I had heard about the 1996 Everest disaster, but this was my first time reading an account of the events. My assumption had been that the tragedy was caused by extreme, unexpected weather, which I suppose is true, but all of it was preventable. Turns out the blizzard that derailed the climbing expedition was a pretty run-of-the-mill blizzard by Everest standards and the lost lives were a result of poor decision-making, summit fever, and ego. Why didn’t everyone just stick to the original plan?!? It’s easy for me to ask that while sitting under a blanket in my heated living room, but Krakauer continuously reminds the reader that these decisions were being made in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth by people beyond exhaustion with brains that were seriously depleted of oxygen.

On a personal level, I thought Krakauer’s exploration of the risks of joining guided expeditions and the role of the guides was fascinating. I’ve done guided mountaineering expeditions in the western US (way more modest and not even close the experience of climbing Everest!), and every time I’m struck by how much I’m putting my safety in the hands of strangers. I’m roping myself to a group of people while we’re navigating deep crevasses and steep sheets of ice and trusting that their climbing abilities and sound decision-making will keep me out of harm’s way…and vice versa because they don’t know me either and a lack of focus or ability on my part can put others in danger as well. That’s where the guides come in. During my first expedition, I was initially annoyed by the strictness of the guides in following their rules, but it became evident pretty quickly why the rules were so important (like the turnaround time on summit day) if I wanted to return safely to my tent. If this book somehow inspired you to do a climb of your own, remember to choose your guides wisely and follow the rules, they are there for a reason. But unfortunately, no matter how experienced your guide is, there’s always room for human error so go in eyes wide open to the risks you’re assuming.

Regardless of your climbing experience, I highly recommend this book to everyone. Krakauer is a remarkable storyteller – his writing keeps you on the edge of your seat but also infuses you with a flurry of emotions. You sense his desire to tell the story in a fair and non-judgmental way in respect to the other climbers, and the trauma and feelings of loss, confusion and regret are felt throughout the book. This book left me with no inclination to climb Mount Everest (not that any inclination really existed before I read it – the idea of the Death Zone is just terrifying to me!), but it definitely left me with a desire to read more of Krakauer’s books.

n  "Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality."n

Everyone has heard of the Mount Everest. Can anyone reach its summit? Depends who you ask and how much you're willing to pay them. One of those who did is Jon Krakauer, a journalist-mountaineer who was sent to the Mountain of Mountains in April 1996 to write for Outside Magazine. What he couldn't have foreseen was that he would witness a storm that lead to one of the biggest disasters to ever happen in the history of climbing the Everest.



I've been loosely following Jon Krakauer's work ever since I came across Into the Wild several years ago, a story that has been very dear and important to me ever since. When I found an abandoned copy of Into Thin Air among all those of Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey in a bookshelf at a hostel I was staying at recently, I knew it must have been waiting there for me. So I took it and didn't put it down until I had soaked up every single word.

I'm not a climber myself and have limited knowledge of what kind of lifestyle mountain climbers lead, thus I learned a lot from Into Thin Air. Krakauer made it possible for me to understand the kind of thrill that comes with the challenge of reaching a summit, the kind of satisfaction you get from taking responsibility for yourself, making decisions and dealing with the consequences. And there's a social aspect to it as well:

n  "And climbing provided a sense of community as well. To become a climber was to join a self-contained, rabidly idealistic society, largely unnoticed and surprisingly uncorrupted by the world at large."n

The deal with the Mount Everest, however, is that there's a bit commercial component to it and it has therefore become a somewhat elitist experience. For a whopping $50,000 to $100,000 even people with limited knowledge are promised a hella good time climbing towards their potential death. You get sherpas to cook food for you and secure the ropes and guides to make the important decisions for you. Krakauer's group, too consisted of a few questionable individuals who were there to push either their egos or media attention. I've read a fairly recent interview in which he stated:

n  "Everest is not real climbing. It’s rich people climbing. It’s a trophy on the wall, and they’re done. When I say I wish I’d never gone, I really mean that."n

Considering what tragedy he involuntarily became part of, you can't blame him. This book tells the story of how the mountain claimed five lives and left many more to deal with the consequences of trauma and injury. It's superbly written. Krakauer has a way of paying respect to the people he writes about, even when their actions were highly questionable. He doesn't shy away from pointing out his own mistakes as well and you can tell through his words that the event left their scars on him. The biggest insight is probably that there wasn't one error, but more an accumulation of tiny things that lead to what happened. It doesn't make the event less tragic and I can see how disturbing and unsettling it must have been to cope with what people call survivor's guilt. This story is empathic, it's emotional and I would definitely recommend this book.