Into Thin Air

So since I finished my first book of the year so quickly, I decided to just keep on reading. To keep my "no 2 fiction books in a row" guideline for the year I decided to go with Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer (also a Christmas gift). It only took me a week to read... so by January 14th I was 1/6 of the way through my reading goal for the year.

Into Thin Air is Jon's personal account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, the deadliest year in the history of Mt. Everest at the time. Five people lost their lives attempting the summit with Krakauer, not to mention the other casualties that year.

Now I consider myself an outdoor adept person, but I know nothing of true mountaineering. And in his narrative leading up the the fateful day of May 10, 1996, Jon does an excellent job of explaining what it takes to get to the top of  a mountain. I also learned a lot about the history of Mt. Everest along with the traditions that go along with climbing it.

For those that have seen the recent movie Everest (starring Jake Gyllenhaal), you know that above 8000m (~26,246ft for those less acquainted with the metric system) is referred to as the "Death Zone". Reading the book, Jon gives more than enough examples of just how accurate that name is - from the impaired judgments, fatigue, and sheer cold that he alone experienced, not to mention what others experienced. He also gives very clear timetables, which shows just how long it takes to move that high up - over 12 hours to climb ~3000 vertical feet from the South Col to the Summit.

The books paints a picture of a handful of poor decisions that alone wouldn't have been much harm, but together proved to be disastrous. It shows just how commercialized climbing mountains has become (Everest in general, but other big mountains as well). Now I haven't done any research to see how many people attempted Everest last year, but more people attempted Everest the year after the disaster than ever before. It takes a certain kind of person to want to climb Everest, and Into Thin Air probably wouldn't persuade a person one way or the other, but it does give you a glimpse of what it takes to get to the top of the world.

You don't take the summit of Everest, the mountain allows you the summit.