Into Thin Air

Jon Krakauer

In spring, 1996, Jon Krakauer was hired by Outdoors magazine to climb Mount Everest and write an article for them. He had climbed mountains most of his adult life and Everest had been his dream since he was a child. He knew it would be difficult. Base camp was higher than he had been before. He had to be fit before he started. It would then take over a month to acclimatize once they had reached Base camp.

The magazine signed him on with a professional New Zealand climbing team. He met them in Nepal and off they went. As well as his team there were other professional climbing teams also making the attempt. There were more than fifty people climbing the dangerous terrain into the higher atmosphere with less oxygen available in the air.

Unfortunately, this expedition was doomed. Before the all the climbers could reach the summit and return to the uppermost camp, a storm covers the mountain. Krakauer made it back to camp. Others did not. Before the experience was over, twelve people died. Krakauer realizes hypoxia and numbness played a major role in bad decisions. It is still difficult for the survivors. He wrote the magazine article as promised. He then wrote this book to help himself heal.

Krakauer makes the trip come alive. Thank goodness I could not actually feel or see the conditions described. Before the team ever reached the camp at the base of Everest (Base camp), I could not help wondering why they bothered to keep going. Everything he described was a deterrent to me. Mountaineers are a strange breed of people to the rest of us who cannot understand. Yet we can understand their drive. We all have something that drives us. We meet the remarkable people who were on that climb. Krakauer tells a realistic story, flaws and all. It is also a fascinating story.

This is a well written book. The author does not pull any punches. He criticizes and praises himself and the other climbers as needed. There was really only one person who never had anything good said about him, and that climber was not involved the day of the accident. Remember, some of the people you will meet in this book will not survive.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger