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Loading... Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (1997)| 12,803 | 298 | 382 | 
(4.19) | 364 | A history of Mount Everest expedition is intertwined with the disastrous expedition the author was a part of, during which five members were killed by a hurricane-strength blizzard. When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were in a desperate struggle for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people - including himself - to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eye-witness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.… (more) |
▾LibraryThing Recommendations  71 The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev (marzipanz, oregonobsessionz, coclimber, bluepiano)marzipanz: It may seem like an obvious recommendation, but I would really urge everybody to read The Climb instead of or in addition to Into Thin Air. It really sheds a completely new light on some of what Krakauer writes, and - to me - seemed a far more convincing account of some of the events.… (more) oregonobsessionz: While The Climb is not an easy read like Into Thin Air, it does provide a different perspective on the disaster, and answers some of Krakauer's criticisms of Boukreev's actions. bluepiano: I may be the only reader of Krakauer's book who thought Boukreev came across as a hero in it. The Climb is a heartening reminder that experience, intelligence, and calm can be the makings of heroism, and it's quite interesting as well. 60 The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea by Sebastian Junger (kraaivrouw)40 Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest by Beck Weathers (riverwillow)40 Everest: The West Ridge by Thomas F. Hornbein (BookWallah)BookWallah: If you liked Into Thin Air, then you are ready for the mountaineering classic, Everest: The West Ridge. This sparse first person account of the other American team that came after Whitaker in 1963 and put up a route that has seldom been repeated. 40 Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson (VivienneR)30 K2 : Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs (Grandeplease)20 Blind Descent: the Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth by James M. Tabor (PamFamilyLibrary)PamFamilyLibrary: Who would guess, but going down into the Super Caves is as dangerous as going up K2 or Everest. 20 Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson (alaskabookworm)alaskabookworm: Couldn't put "Shadow Divers" down; one of my favorite nonfiction adventure books of all time. 20 Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains by Jon Krakauer (fichtennadel, Sandydog1)Sandydog1: If you want some background on "what makes Krakauer tick", do check out his earlier stories. 20 The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann (g33kgrrl)20 Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (sturlington)10 Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season by Nick Heil (normandie_m)normandie_m: The events in this book re-opened discussion of the controversies surrounding the 1996 disaster. Heil examines similar themes, particularly the ethical dilemma of whether or not to offer assistance to/rescuing sick climbers when one's own health and supplies such as oxygen are depleted.… (more) 10 Annapurna by Maurice Herzog (Sandydog1)10 Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar (sweetbug)sweetbug: Both stories of mountaineering adventures gone terribly, terribly wrong. 10 Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey by Göran Kropp (Navarone)10 The Kid Who Climbed Everest: The Incredible Story of a 23-Year-Old's Summit of Mt. Everest by Bear Grylls (FireandIce)10 The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Sławomir Rawicz (sombrio)10 The Other Side of Everest: Climbing the North Face Through the Killer Storm by Matt Dickinson (riverwillow)00 The Summit of the Gods, Volume 1 by Jirô Taniguchi (villemezbrown)00 Dead Lucky: Life after Death on Mount Everest by Lincoln Hall (RMSmithJr)
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| Epigraph |
Men play at tragedy because they do not believe in the reality of the tragey which is actually being staged in the civilised world. —José Ortega y Gasset  | |
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| Dedication |
For Linda; and in memory of Andy Harris, Doug Hansen, Rob Hall, Yasuko Namba, Scott Fischer, Ngawang Topche Sherpa, Chen Yu-Nana, Bruce Herrod, and Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa | |
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Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. | |
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Getting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable. John Krakauer | |
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Beidleman paused. "But I can't help thinking about Yasuko," he said when he resumed, his voice hushed. "She was so little. I can still feel her fingers sliding across my biceps, and then letting go. I never even turned to look back." (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.) | |
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Please distinguish between print editions of Jon Krakauer's 1997 memoir, Into Thin Air, and the abridged audio version. Thank you. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English (19)
▾Book descriptions A history of Mount Everest expedition is intertwined with the disastrous expedition the author was a part of, during which five members were killed by a hurricane-strength blizzard. When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were in a desperate struggle for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people - including himself - to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eye-witness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description |
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Anyway, Krakauer is trying to be as objective as possible on the events of the 1996 Everest disaster while realizing that he needs to sell his writing, cannot remove all of his biases due to being right in the middle of the disaster, and several key points of view being lost when people died between the summit and camp 4. I don't know that I agree with all of his conclusions on what should have happened (whatever was happening with Hall and Hansen still seems really flimsy to me, but there's really no way to find any further truths), especially with other teams that seemed standoffish, such as the South Africans.
The rebuttal to Boukreev and DeWalt's the Climb at the end of the edition I read was interesting. It's even further removed from the disaster, and adds even more outside information to what was going on. It also shows some of the behind-the-scenes contentions that Krakauer was pretty careful to leave out in the main text.
Anyway, Krakauer's still a great writer, so his prose is great to read. I just got bogged down in the minutiae, I think. But I'm also not trying to expunge my guilt or tell the truth while not ruining peoples' professional and moral integrity, so that's fine.
I still have no plans to do extreme mountain climbing.