Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Mount Everest Disaster (1999)

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I promised myself that when I wrote a synopsis of Into Thin Air it would not contain the words perilous, arduous, or ill-fated because those words have a limiting effect on a book of this calibre. Yes, it recounts an ill-fated Everest expedition. Yes the climb is fraught with peril. It is an adventure story, but in its honesty it is quite a bit more. Although it is a non-fictional work, many of the literary conflicts that make for good narrative are present. The most apparent are man vs. himself, man vs. nature, and man vs. the supernatural. To an extent we see man vs. man in the competition between Adventure Consultants (Rob Hall) and Mountain Madness (Scott Fischer.) However, by and large we see only heroes, (flawed heroes,) in this book. The only antagonist is Everest herself, and no one will look down on her. Ethics/morality vs. survival as well as prudence vs. ambition come out as themes as well. Mountain climbers, like politicians are ambitious by nature and that ambition can sometimes lead to actions that, under normal circumstances would be deemed unethical, or at the very least questionable. Krakauer does a good job of avoiding finger-pointing and admitting that in many ways all present were culpable of the outcome. But by the same degree, all were also blameless. The sister of one of the victims wrote him a letter that sums it up, "Everyone was doing their best at the given time under the given circumstances... No one is at fault. No one is to blame."All in all, in the grand scheme of things it's hard to tell who the winners were in this book. Whether it was the ones who lived, the ones who died or Everest herself. The families lost out to nature and ambition, I'm sure of that.
—Philip

My 5 star rating reflects both the quality of the book and a lifetime passion for mountains. I've devoured in the past all books and magazine articles I could find, following climbers from Cerro Torres to Eiger or Matterhorn, Trango Towers, Kilimanjaro or McKinley. The Jewels in the Crown have always been the Himalayan peaks, with their musical names promising adventure and fame to the bold and determined climber: Nanga Parbat, Makalu, Annapurna, Kangchenjunga, Chomolungma, Lhotse, Dhaulagiri, Gasherbrum, Nanda Devi, Nuptse - the final challenges in the attempt to eliminate the white spots from the world maps. Jon Krakauer's account of the 1996 doomed attempt at climbing the highest mountain in the world as part of a commercial expedition is a worthy addition to my Mountain themed bookshelf.I didn't pick up the book in order to find out the ultimate truth about the events that culminated in one of the deadliest climbing days at high altitude. I was already aware of the numerous controversies surrounding the publishing of his reportage, and I decided to be circumspect in accepting the facts as presented. This is an eye-witness account of somebody who has been in the thick of it, directly involved in decisions that meant life and death for members of the summit teams on that unlucky day. It probably has its share of finger pointing and self serving selective presentation of facts. A second source of interference that I detected came from the fact that the story was comissioned by Krakauer publishers with a predetermined theme, and I suspect that they had their say in the final version of the book, especially regarding the dangers of commercial guided expeditions and amateurs promised a safe climb to the top.My reservations about the book were soon forgotten as I become immersed in the day to day grind of preparing for the crucial moments in the "death zone" - acclimatization ascents, health hazards at base camp and above, the interplay between members of the team and between different expeditions. Krakauer puts these preparation weeks to good use, sketching detailed portraits of the main actors in the drama, getting the reader familiar with them and with the technical aspects of high altitude climbing, and letting the later chapters be focused on the unfolding events on the peak and in the aftermath of the devastating tempest that left all previous planning and training irrelevant.Krakauer training as a journalist is visible in the clear cut prose, the depth of his research and the high emotional impact of the human interest stories behind the cold facts that left 9 people dead. One of the things that drives home to me the merciless nature of the Himalayas and the devastating effect of the lack of oxygen and the physical exhaustion of the climbers is the casual mention of climbers passing by frozen corpses on their trail to the summit, bodies that have lain there for decades in some cases, and that nobody tries to bring down to Base Camp because of the risks the rescuers are exposed to. 8000 m above sea level is called the "death zone" for a reason : humans are not meant to live here, and the body will refuse to function, no matter how strong the will of the climber is, or how good his training. Krakauer and his team mates are not inconsiderate of the risks, in fact they are well aware of them from past ascensions and numerous accounts of previous expeditions. The author does a good job here exploring the motivations, himself included, that drive people to put their lives at risk: fame, the call of adventure, the pride of belonging to an elite group, curiosity, self-fulfillment, commercial interests, escape from the tediousness of a life without real challenges, and so on. He also speaks clearly about what a high altitude climb really feels like : you have no time to admire the landscape or to think deep thoughts about existence and fulfilled dreams; you are too busy dragging thin air into your lungs three times for every step forward, too exhausted after three nights without sleep, after weeks without proper food, your brain slows down for lack of oxygen and your eyes are blinded by snow and ultraviolet light. Every hour spent in the "death zone" increases the risk of remaining there for ever. Here's what Rob Hall, the most famous guide on the mountain in 1996, had to say : With enough determination, any bloody idiot can get up this hill. The trick is to get back down alive Jon Krakauer may be subjective in what he included in his account, but he convinced me as a reader that he was there on top of the world, and he survived to come back with a warning about overestimating ones prowess, disrespecting the mountain and taking risks with people's lifes. His lesson about excessive commercial interests and lack of organization between different teams has not been learned: sadly, just while I was in the middle of the book, I saw an item on the news that on 21 May 2012, 4 more people died on Everest, not in accidents, but due to exhaustion. Apparently 150 people tried to climb the summit on the same day, producing a traffic congestion on the most dangerous part of the climb.I will end my report, with a quote from when Jon first saw the peak, on the trail to base camp : The summit looked so cold, so high, so impossibly far away. I felt as though I might as well be on an expedition to the moon. As I turned away to continue walking up the trail, my emotions oscillated between nervous anticipation and a nearly overwhelming sense of dread.
—Algernon

3.5 stars. Jon Krakauer is an remarkable writer. He doesn't just write well but has the astonishing ability to summarize important and needed information the way it only requires few hundred pages between the bindings.This is particularly important talent to have when you can assume that whoever is reading your book, has no deeper understanding of the subject you are writing about. This was the case with me. I had very minimal knowledge about climbing, Mount Everest and the tragic event that took place in 1996, causing the death of many mountaineers. Luckily, Into Thin Air doesn't give all its focus to the disaster itself but offers a lot of knowledge about the climbing, expeditions, history and culture of the Mt. Everest as well as health related information and risks that come with high altitudes. Even though I understand a little more better why people feel the fascination towards climbing, I would not say it to be something I personally find appealing in any sense. It mostly seems to be a lot of pain, misery, agony and suffering while walking among dead bodies. I think I have better use for my money, maybe. This was an interesting and thrilling story of the erratic nature and its collision with multiple human errors, cockiness and irresponsibility amongst experienced and non-experienced professionals. Into Thin Air, however, is a book I should of have read in my own language. At times I come across books that do show how underdeveloped my English is, especially when the terminology is out of my comfort/knowledge zone. I needed dictionary, Google Translate and a lot of sentence re-read to fully internalize the things I was reading about.This, of course, is not the fault of the book or the author, but it takes some of my personal enjoyment away, which is always a reason for me to down my rating with 0.5 stars.Review also posted at: http://hfk.booklikes.com/
—Hunger For Knowledge