Into Thin Air

I am not much of an adventurer, but I do like reading about the experiences of other people who push their levels of endurance beyond what I would even consider. Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, is a book that fits into this category. For the life of me, I can’t understand why someone would subject himself to the tremendous risk and agonizing physical conditions that are a part of climbing Mt. Everest. So you get to be one of only a few dozen human beings ever to stand on the top of the world for five minutes. That, the beautiful vistas, and the overall challenge, I guess is enough for the adventuresome among us. I myself prefer cozy hotel rooms and delicious food when I travel.

In any case, the book that Krakauer wrote about his 1996 expedition to Mt. Everest, which resulted in the deaths of 12 climbers (not all of them from his group), is beautifully written, terribly sad, and at the same time, an amazing testament to the human spirit. Since I listened to, rather than read, this book I cannot give you any examples of the vividness of his descriptions or the precise way he chooses words to convey the actions and underlying emotions of the protagonists in this story. He gives what I think is a very balanced account of the mistakes people made as well as the bad luck they encountered, and he does so in a non-blaming way, pointing out that there are no easy explanations for the tragedy that resulted from a complex combination of factors, including the fact that all the climbers were severely impaired by oxygen deprivation. He points the most accusing finger at himself for not managing to save some of the other climbers. At least when he wrote this book, he was still wallowing in what was to me, undeserving survivor’s guilt.

Krakauer’s original mission was to write a story about the commercialization of Everest for Outside magazine. What he found included fields at 27,000 feet (give or take) strewn with discarded oxygen canisters (not to mention, corpses), poorly prepared (but very wealthy) people paying huge sums to be shepherded up the mountain, and long lines of people waiting in line for their chance to use fixed ropes to get up the steepest inclines. The trashing of Everest is a magnification of what we see in our national parks every day – only 98 people summitted Everest in 1996, compared to the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, who visit a place like Yosemite each year.

Fifteen people died in their quest to scale the world's highest peak in 1996, making it the worst year in history, according to this site. Beyond the enormity of this tragedy, there are important lessons in this book for all of us who visit, and appreciate, our wilderness areas, even the faint-hearted like me. Thank you Jon Krakauer, for baring your soul to the rest if us.