Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
Jon Krakauer
Villard Books, 1997
In May 1996, a rogue storm killed nine climbers on Mount Everest, several of them from an expedition led by Rob Hall of New Zealand, the others from an expedition led by American Scott Fischer. Hall and Fischer were themselves counted among the victims. One of the survivors from Hall’s expedition was John Krakauer, a writer from Outside Magazine, who had volunteered to go on the expedition to research and write a story on the commercialization of Everest.
Krakauer was no inexperienced novice, having been a climber for over 30 years at the time of the expedition, and that is part of what makes his telling of the story particularly compelling. He had the background and personal experience necessary to write the story in a way that someone who had never climbed a mountain could not. And he was there when the disaster happened, observing with a writer’s eye for details.
I have never had any desire to climb a mountain, nor any real knowledge of mountain climbing, despite living near some of the most-climbed peaks in the Pacific Northwest - Mount Rainier and Mount Hood. I didn’t pay much attention to the Everest disaster at the time, and all I remembered hearing before reading Krakauer’s book was that some guy was able to call his wife on the phone from the top of Everest right before he died. Perhaps it was my recent unexplained interest in disaster stories that led me to Into Thin Air a few weeks ago, twelve years after the Everest disaster.
In the author’s note at the end of the book, Krakauer writes, “My intent … was to tell what happened on the mountain as accurately and honestly as possible, and to do it in a sensitive and respectful manner.” Krakauer succeeds in this admirably. There are no “bad guys” in this book, just real human beings who did the best they could in unexpected and calamitous circumstances. The book is not about blame, but about understanding what happened.
Albeit through Krakauer’s eyes, we get to know many of the climbers from Hall’s and Fischer’s expeditions as they prepare to ascend the mountain: a postal worker making his second attempt at Everest, an attorney who had climbed six of the Seven Summits, a pathologist, a publisher who had attempted Everest three times, an anesthesiologist, a cardiologist, a 47-year old Japanese woman, a female “millionaire socialite-cum-climber,” among others. Most of the climbers had had at least some high-altitude climbing experience. We also get to know the leaders and guides for both expeditions, most of whom were very experienced climbers. These were expeditions that should have succeeded.
The immediacy of Krakauer’s writing, as he relives every day, every hour, and sometimes every minute of the experience, conveys the hard work involved in climbing to the peak of Everest and the desire that drove the climbers on, until a sudden turn in the weather left them struggling to stay alive in a hostile environment where they only had themselves to depend upon.
No one seemed aware of the approaching storm. Some bad decisions were made. Mistakes and more bad decisions were made by men and women weakened both physically and mentally by the elements. In the end, some of the most experienced people failed to survive, while other less experienced people miraculously did.
This is a true and tragic story that’s not easily forgotten, especially by Krakauer, who ends his introduction to the book by confessing, “I was a party to the death of good people, which is something that is apt to remain on my conscience for a very long time.” This is a story Krakauer had to tell in the way that only he could, and I for one am glad he shared it with us.
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