Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (1997)

At times, reading this book felt rather invasive. Ostensibly it's journalist Jon Krakauer's account of what transpired in May 1996 atop Mt Everest. He had been commissioned by mountaineering magazine Outside to take part in one of the guided ascents so as to write a piece on this controversial practice of experienced climbers helping people to the top who would otherwise have no chance of reaching it. On the day his group and another guided exhibition made their bids for the summit, a storm moved in. Krakauer and a few others barely made it back from the summit to the camp they had set up, eight others from the two groups were less fortunate and died.

I say “ostensibly” because what the book really feels like is therapy. Krakauer harbours a great deal of guilt over the events. Some of this is survivor's guilt and some comes from the fact that a few hours after he returned to his tent a group of survivors lost their way in the blizzard and decided to try to wait out the storm agonisingly close to the camp. Hours later when the storm began to clear some of this group did find the camp and Anatoli Boukreev, one of the Russian guides, made a couple of attempts to rescue the others. Ultimately only one member of this small group died, a Japanese climber called Yasuko Namba (both she and American Beck Weathers were left for dead, but Weathers somehow awoke from his comatose state and walked back into camp the next morning, ultimately making it off the mountain alive if horrifically frostbitten). Krakauer's guilt over being asleep in his tent while people were dying so close by is palpable at times, and one can only hope that the barely contained outpourings of grief in the text were cathartic. But as I said at the start of the review, part of me felt that I was reading someone's diary or listening in on a therapy session, something that did make me a tad uncomfortable at times.

Those qualms aside, the book is a well written account. Krakauer has done his research, something that becomes vastly more important when writing about events at such high altitude since the lack of oxygen has a powerful discombobulating effect. Indeed, for several months after the climb Krakauer had been telling people that he had spoken to one of the guides, Andy Harris, and seen him fall down a large sheet of ice unscathed and walk into camp. When Harris was not present at the camp the next morning Krakauer set out to find him and discovering some crampon marks next to a sheer drop on the edge of the camp he surmised that a hypoxic Harris had got lost walking into camp and walked right off a cliff. Harris's family, who the previous evening had been told that Harris was fine, then had to be told that in fact he had died a rather ignoble death. Months later while interviewing another survivor, Krakauer discovered that the man he had spoken to and seen fall into the camp wasn't Harris, but this survivor, Martin Adams. Hypoxic himself, Krakauer's brain had mistaken this relative stranger for his friend Harris and thus the confusion began. The crampon marks on the edge of the drop later turned out to be from one of the Sherpas who had also got lost and walked beyond the camp, before realising his mistake and clambering back via the cliff. Harris, it turned out, had gone back for his group's leader and one of the clients, who were still near the summit. His ice axe, left stuck part way up a cliff, suggested he didn't make it.

A great number of jarring juxtapositions are strewn through the text. The romantic illusions of climbing the world's highest mountain contrasted with the excrement and litter filled camps along the route. The statistics showing that more climbers survive Everest now that ever before, contrasted with the corpses encountered by the path and the ultimate fact that 1996 saw fifteen climbers die on Everest, the greatest number in a single season ever. Some of the people involved are also almost caricatures of Hollywood stereotypes. There's the British villain who lies and threatens his way to the top, even refusing to let Krakauer's team use his radio when theirs ran out of batteries while the disaster was unfolding. There's the American prima donna who takes her laptops and hairdryer with her, having a Sherpa carry it all even to the camps where it won't work anymore. These depressing examples of humanity are portrayed in a generally open and honest manner. Krakauer doesn't seem to be blaming anyone, just trying to get everything off his chest and understand why it happened. Unfortunately the people best suited to answer this question died on the mountain, and those that survived had a tendency to alter their story on each telling, until many of these died too in the subsequent years.

The finger pointing does start up a little bit in the final chapter, but upon finishing that I didn't honestly feel that anyone who survived the events was to blame. Certainly not Anatoli Boukreev, the Russian guide. He had made some foolish decisions, yes. He was being paid $25 000 to act as a guide, yet seemed to treat it as a chance to climb the mountain. He avoided the clients in his group and climbed the mountain without supplemental oxygen, a feat tricky at the best of times. Trying to climb Everest and help others to and from the summit without using oxygen was folly, and Krakauer points this out. But he also highlights the hours that Boukreev spent rescuing the group who had made it almost to the camp. So I was a little surprised when I discovered that the “update” in this second edition wasn't a more definitive version of events, but simply a postscript wherein Krakauer rebuts aspersions on his character and factual errors in Boukreev's book [b:The Climb|1750745|The Climb Tragic Ambitions on Everest|Anatoli Boukreev|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317791328s/1750745.jpg|910376]. The tragedy that happened on Everest was inevitably going to effect the lives of those who survived, but it's a shame that in the years following it descended into name calling and arguments over some fairly minor details. ( )

The story of an ill-fated Everest expedition by one of the members.

I suspect I wouldn't have finished this if it hadn't been a book club choice. Perhaps I wasn't concentrating enough, but I found it hard to keep track of who was where and where each place was in relation to other places. I just came away with an impression that Everest is ridiculously overcrowded. ( )

At times, reading this book felt rather invasive. Ostensibly it's journalist Jon Krakauer's account of what transpired in May 1996 atop Mt Everest. He had been commissioned by mountaineering magazine Outside to take part in one of the guided ascents so as to write a piece on this controversial practice of experienced climbers helping people to the top who would otherwise have no chance of reaching it. On the day his group and another guided exhibition made their bids for the summit, a storm moved in. Krakauer and a few others barely made it back from the summit to the camp they had set up, eight others from the two groups were less fortunate and died.

I say “ostensibly” because what the book really feels like is therapy. Krakauer harbours a great deal of guilt over the events. Some of this is survivor's guilt and some comes from the fact that a few hours after he returned to his tent a group of survivors lost their way in the blizzard and decided to try to wait out the storm agonisingly close to the camp. Hours later when the storm began to clear some of this group did find the camp and Anatoli Boukreev, one of the Russian guides, made a couple of attempts to rescue the others. Ultimately only one member of this small group died, a Japanese climber called Yasuko Namba (both she and American Beck Weathers were left for dead, but Weathers somehow awoke from his comatose state and walked back into camp the next morning, ultimately making it off the mountain alive if horrifically frostbitten). Krakauer's guilt over being asleep in his tent while people were dying so close by is palpable at times, and one can only hope that the barely contained outpourings of grief in the text were cathartic. But as I said at the start of the review, part of me felt that I was reading someone's diary or listening in on a therapy session, something that did make me a tad uncomfortable at times.

Those qualms aside, the book is a well written account. Krakauer has done his research, something that becomes vastly more important when writing about events at such high altitude since the lack of oxygen has a powerful discombobulating effect. Indeed, for several months after the climb Krakauer had been telling people that he had spoken to one of the guides, Andy Harris, and seen him fall down a large sheet of ice unscathed and walk into camp. When Harris was not present at the camp the next morning Krakauer set out to find him and discovering some crampon marks next to a sheer drop on the edge of the camp he surmised that a hypoxic Harris had got lost walking into camp and walked right off a cliff. Harris's family, who the previous evening had been told that Harris was fine, then had to be told that in fact he had died a rather ignoble death. Months later while interviewing another survivor, Krakauer discovered that the man he had spoken to and seen fall into the camp wasn't Harris, but this survivor, Martin Adams. Hypoxic himself, Krakauer's brain had mistaken this relative stranger for his friend Harris and thus the confusion began. The crampon marks on the edge of the drop later turned out to be from one of the Sherpas who had also got lost and walked beyond the camp, before realising his mistake and clambering back via the cliff. Harris, it turned out, had gone back for his group's leader and one of the clients, who were still near the summit. His ice axe, left stuck part way up a cliff, suggested he didn't make it.

A great number of jarring juxtapositions are strewn through the text. The romantic illusions of climbing the world's highest mountain contrasted with the excrement and litter filled camps along the route. The statistics showing that more climbers survive Everest now that ever before, contrasted with the corpses encountered by the path and the ultimate fact that 1996 saw fifteen climbers die on Everest, the greatest number in a single season ever. Some of the people involved are also almost caricatures of Hollywood stereotypes. There's the British villain who lies and threatens his way to the top, even refusing to let Krakauer's team use his radio when theirs ran out of batteries while the disaster was unfolding. There's the American prima donna who takes her laptops and hairdryer with her, having a Sherpa carry it all even to the camps where it won't work anymore. These depressing examples of humanity are portrayed in a generally open and honest manner. Krakauer doesn't seem to be blaming anyone, just trying to get everything off his chest and understand why it happened. Unfortunately the people best suited to answer this question died on the mountain, and those that survived had a tendency to alter their story on each telling, until many of these died too in the subsequent years.

The finger pointing does start up a little bit in the final chapter, but upon finishing that I didn't honestly feel that anyone who survived the events was to blame. Certainly not Anatoli Boukreev, the Russian guide. He had made some foolish decisions, yes. He was being paid $25 000 to act as a guide, yet seemed to treat it as a chance to climb the mountain. He avoided the clients in his group and climbed the mountain without supplemental oxygen, a feat tricky at the best of times. Trying to climb Everest and help others to and from the summit without using oxygen was folly, and Krakauer points this out. But he also highlights the hours that Boukreev spent rescuing the group who had made it almost to the camp. So I was a little surprised when I discovered that the “update” in this second edition wasn't a more definitive version of events, but simply a postscript wherein Krakauer rebuts aspersions on his character and factual errors in Boukreev's book [b:The Climb|1750745|The Climb Tragic Ambitions on Everest|Anatoli Boukreev|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317791328s/1750745.jpg|910376]. The tragedy that happened on Everest was inevitably going to effect the lives of those who survived, but it's a shame that in the years following it descended into name calling and arguments over some fairly minor details. ( )

An engrossing look at a mountaineering accident on top of Mount Everest in May 1996 involving a few climbing expeditions, including the one in which Krakauer was taking part as a guest. Krakauer documents, in a very readable fashion, the events that led to multiple deaths on the mountain, with a few small decisions spiraling, in the face of sudden storms and wind, into a major catastrophe.

I really enjoy the outdoors, but I do think that it can be hard to reconcile a desire to be in the outdoors and to experience these incredible places with the recognition that so much can go wrong, that there are sometimes enormous inherent risks in exploring and experiencing these places. I think that Krakauer does a really good job of balancing detailing the enormous tragedy while, at the same time, honoring the majesty of Everest and making it clear why people could want to climb it. (I think I can say pretty definitively, though, that this book has only compounded a sense that I don't really think mountaineering is for me.) ( )

Excellent personal recollections of the Everest climbing disaster in 1996. A pity it wasn't used before they made the film of the disaster