For much of the English-speaking world, the tallest recorded mountain peak in the world is named for British surveyor of India, Sir George Everest. Mount Everest, that mountain is simultaneously known as Sagarmatha in Sanskrit and Nepali, Chomolungma in Tibetan and Zhumulangma Feng in Chinese (Pinyin). Other spellings for Zhumulangma Feng include Chu-mu-lang-ma Feng and Qomolangma Feng. The Jon Krakauer book Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster offers a candid telling of the 1996 expedition Krakauer, who grew up in Corvallis, Oregon, made to the summit.
The expedition is of note, as I quote from here, due to a disaster “in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm.” The book aims to set a straight record for what happened with the expedition, with the 1997 hardback edition of Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster raising criticism from expedition guide Anatoli Boukreev of Kazakhstan, separately from Oakland, California mountaineer Galen Rowell, and ultimately others.
In the 1999 paperback version of the book, which is the version we review today, Krakauer addressed some of Boukreev‘s criticism in a substantial epilogue. With the book translated into more than 25 languages, as claimed here, there’s influence in Krakauer‘s work. The conciliatory tone Krakauer took with Boukreev in the book, Boukreev having died in a separate climb of Annapurna in Nepal, aims to set the record straight while aiming to disagree on points that speak in less than glowing terms for the decision-making made between the two.
Rob Hall of New Zealand guided the expedition Jon Krakauer took to the summit of Mount Everest. The mountaineering guide Hall made five ascents of Mount Everest peak, losing his life in the blizzard that did in many of the climbers discussed in Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. A separate expedition leader, Scott Fischer originally of Muskegon, Michigan, also lost his life through this expedition. The accounts offered in this book aimed to articulate the thoughts upon climbing, the acclimation decisions around elevation, approaches to addressing fatigue, weather, usage of oxygen canisters and the presence of other expeditions aiming to climb the summit of the mountain the same day.
The book offered a much fuller description of the experiences of the expeditions generally, and Krakauer‘s expedition specifically, than did the article Krakauer wrote for Outside magazine in the almost immediate aftermath of returning from the climb and descent. (Note that while Outside magazine and Outside Online shared content, the two were operated with some sense of independence that Krakauer discussed briefly in the book). While I myself am nowhere close to an expert mountaineer, climber or any definition close to either, I found the experience of the climb and descent fascinating even before the questions of life and death came to pass. That the book captured some firsthand experiences, along with unpleasant truths of the experience, made for compelling reading even before the remaining questions that interpreted decisions made.
That people would choose to go through the extremes required to get to the top and back down safely is quite remarkable. This perhaps was what drew me to the nonfiction work that has been the subject of this writing. My being impressed with the writing should be clear from the fact that I am giving Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster as written by Jon Krakauer 4.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
Matt – Monday, October 10, 2022