📚 Into Thin Air
Book Title
Into Thin Air
(non-fiction | memoir/adventure)
Author
Jon Krakauer
Review
Into Thin Air is an adventure book that discusses the events that led up to the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest. Jon Krakauer speaks through his personal experience with the expedition as a journalist and through interviews of the survivors afterwards.
As an avid hiker, I have been frustrated by my lack of ability for finding words to describe my feelings when standing at the peak of mountains in South Korea. What I personally liked about the book was Krakauer’s ability to express climbing through words.
“I thrilled in the fresh persepective that came from tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end.”
Krakauer also gives recognition to Sherpas, which are Nepalese people that learn technical climbing skills to work for the peaks. Sherpas have been mistreated and unrecognized for their hard efforts in the past, which is why it is important to note their bravery when helping foreign clients reach the peaks of dangerous mountains such as Everest.
Additionally, this book does a great job of breaking down mountaineering history, such as the fact Hillary and Tenzing (Sherpa) were the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953. It also mentions that Reinhold Messner was the first climber to reach all ‘14 Peaks’ - a name attributed to ascents of 8,000 metre peaks.
What I believe to be true that contributed to the cause of the 1996 disaster were the roles that were engraved into the climber’s consciousness. As Karakauer mentions:
“I’d found that the most rewarding aspects of mountaineering derive from the sport’s emphasis on self-reliance, on making critical decisions and dealing with consequences, on personal responsibility. When you sign on as a client, you are forced to give up all of that…”
This quote empahsizes the wrong choices that were made during the storm that caught the expedition at an altitude greater than 27,000 feet. As the guide was hired to call the decisions and be responsible for each client, there was no room for personal opinion - which could have helped indiviuduals make rational decisions instinctively when danger appeared.
People might wonder why there are no strict regulations for safety when climbing a dangerous mountain such as Everest. These regulations could include limiting personnel to one guide per client, or banning bottled oxygen which would force climbers to give up before reaching danger zones due to their own physical limitiations. However, to this which Krakauer points to:
“guiding Everest is a very loosely regulated business, administered by byzantine Third World bureaucracies spectacularly ill-equipped to assess qualifications of guides or clients. Moreover, the two nations that control access to the peak - Nepal and China - are staggeringly poor. Desperate for hard currency, the governments of both countries have a vested interest in issuing as many expensive climbing permits as the markert will support, and both are unlikely to enact any policies that significantly limit their revenues.”
For those of you that dream of ascending Everest one day; you are not alone. Even after reading this book, I can’t lie that my interest in climbing the world’s highest peak has not diminished. I understand that the ratio of pain to pleasure is a magnitude greater than what one can perceive. But I realized that I climb:
“not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.”
Note: Highest peaks from the 7 continents
Asia –> Mount Everest (29,028 ft)
South America –> Aconcagua (22,834 ft)
North America –> McKinley/Denali (20,320 ft)
Africa –> Kilimanjaro (19,340 ft)
Europe –> Elbrus (18,510 ft)
Antarctica –> Vinson Massif (16,067 ft)
Australia –> Kosciusko (7,316 ft)
-수완-