Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Mount Everest Disaster (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/ “Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics, and others with a shaky hold on reality.” Welcome to one of Kelly’s creepy obsessions! (Advance apologies - this might get rambly.) Okay, so I’m totally obsessed with all things Everest and CAN. NOT. WAIT. to see the movie that details the same tragic events which are covered in this book (even though just watching the preview in IMAX 3-D made me have diarrhea). I have spent the past month watching EVERYTHING Everest-related on Netflix and You Tube. (Note: I highly recommend the television series Everest: Beyond the Limit as well as Ultimate Survival: Everest – unfortunately the IMAX Everest documentary which was filmed during this fateful 1996 expedition didn’t end up so great. Kudos to the filmmakers for attempting to produce a final product, but really once you’ve watched 8 of your fellow climbers die your heart probably isn’t in the project so much.) Anyway, back to my bizarre fangirl squeeing. Because I’m ignorant I had no clue that Into Thin Air was an Everest book or that it was THE Everest book detailing the storm of the century . . . (Note #2: The film is the same story, but the rights to Krakauer’s book were not purchased in order to make it – it’s a conglomeration of all of the survivors’ memories.) I had read Into the Wild and enjoyed Krakauer’s ability to spin a tale, but wasn’t thrilled with the story as a whole so I put his name on the backburner of authors I would read in the future should I come across him. Then everyone started reading Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town which brought him back to the forefront and me searching for his books – which leads to long story long HOLY SHIT HE WROTE AN EVEREST BOOK?!?!?!?!?!Please note I have zero desire to ever attempt to climb Mt. Everest (or anything higher than a flight of stairs). EVER. First, I’m fat and have resigned myself to the fact that I will always be at least a little bit so. Second, I’m terrified of heights. We’re talking I can’t climb a stepladder. And third, EVEREST. Seriously. You know what you die of on Everest? Your BRAIN F-ING SWELLING TO THE POINT WHERE YOUR EYEBALLS BULGE OUT OF YOUR HEAD. Either that or you drown on your own lung juices. Drowning in water terrifies me, drowning because I was dumb enough to attempt to climb to the height of where a jumbo jet flies is beyond my comprehension. All that being said, I did the next best thing to really make me feel part of the action – I read this book while walking at a 30% incline on my treadmill. Just like being there I’m sure . . . I can never wrap my brain around the fact that people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to go on a vacation where there is a one in four chance of dying rather than reaching the summit. That’s cray. I also am one of the nutters who, although totally obsessed with the climbing of Everest, doesn’t really want anyone doing it. Everest is one of the natural wonders in the world – and due to the “cool factor” that one gets should they reach make it safely to the top and back down again it is also the home of 10 tons of garbage and heaping pyramids of human waste. It’s also a place where inexperienced adventure seeking overgrown children think they can buy their way to the top, but as Rob Hall (one of the expedition leaders who lost his life to the mountain) said . . . “With enough determination, any bloody idiot can get UP this hill. The trick is to get back down alive.”For a price of between $50,000 to $100,000 nearly anyone can attempt to make the climb and many believe the hiring of Sherpas and the hopes of being “short-roped” if the going gets tough will let them achieve their dream. While Krakauer was lucky enough to be matched up with some experienced climbers (between Rob Hall and Scott Fischer’s groups there was TONS of publicity/advertising money at stake so they needed everyone to summit safely in order to promote their expedition companies) they were still a rag-tag team of climbers that mixed expedition leaders, guides, sherpas, a lawyer, several doctors, a personnel director, a publisher, a postal worker and a journalist together. The reality of an Everest expedition is this - once you’re at altitude and the shit hits the fan. . . “You might as well be on the moon.”And with the price being one that the wealthy can easily afford (or that the middle-class can save a lifetime for in order to achieve the biggest bucketlist item out there), Mt. Everest doesn’t even have to throw the curveball of bad weather. This . . . . is often times the kiss of death. With the summit visable from this vantage point, climbers are nearly impossible to turn around – leading to a greater chance of hypothermia, frostbite, not making the descent before dark, running out of oxygen, etc. In my opinion, it should cost a million dollars per person to climb Everest. That would be enough money for clean-up and deter the wannabe super(wo)men from attempting the climb. Because seriously, while this book was fascinating in a “watching a trainwreck” type of way – it should have served as Exhibit A of why massive changes in the rules/regulations regarding Everest needs to happen.Recommended to anyone who likes to experience adventure and defy death from the safety of their reading chair. My only advice is to familiarize yourself with the specific locations which are continually talked about with respect to the Everest climb. Places like the Lhotse Face, Khumbu Icefall or the Hillary Step. It’s easy to forget the danger that is the Khumbu Icefall if you don’t know that this is what it looks like . . .
You can always tell you are reading a good book when you find yourself holding your breath during the intense moments. Well, this is definitely one of that book.Meski gw samasekali buta tentang hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan mendaki gunung, tapi gw sempat punya impian dan hasrat gila untuk mendaki gunung Everest. Setelah membaca buku ini impian dan hasrat tersebut (kalaupun masih ada) kini dipastikan lenyap tanpa bekas. Thanks a lot Mr. Krakauer for make my dream coming to an abrupt end, heuheu. Alasan-alasannya ialah...*selama berminggu-minggu didera suhu dingin yang ekstrim dibawah nol derajat*resiko jari-jari dan hidung yang menghitam dan membeku akibat frosbite*sulit menelan makanan, tidur, resiko terserang hipotermia*resiko pecahnya pembuluh darah karena kurangnya pasokan oksigen*resiko pembengkakan paru-paru--bernapas saja sakitnya minta ampun*tiupan angin kencang yang suaranya saja seperti suara mesin jet 747*resiko kebutaan akibat mata yang membeku (air mata aja bisa beku)*kemampuan berpikir otak yang turun drastis karena kekurangan oksigen--jadi linglungmasih kurang? oke, tambahin deh*resiko terpeleset dan jatuh ke jurang yang dalam*tergulung longsoran salju*ketimpuk batu yang ujug-ujug jatuh*terjebak dalam badai saljumasih kurang juga? baiklah... untuk menghadapi resiko-resiko "sadis" diatas anda diwajibkan mengeluarkan duit sebanyak sekitar 65.000 dollar untuk bisa mengikuti sebuah ekspedisi Everest and still.. there's no guarrante that you will be standing "triumphantly" on the top of the world.Itulah gambaran yang sangat deskriptif dari seorang Krakauer tentang kondisi sebuah pendakian ketika dia menceritakan pengalamannya mendaki Everest yang berakhir tragis yang menewaskan sembilan orang pada tanggal 10 Mei 1996. Ketika sejumlah tim ekspedisi yang berisi orang-orang dengan pengalaman sangat minim (tapi banyak duit buat bayar) nekat mendaki Everest yang berdiri kokoh menjulang setinggi 8.848 meter dpl, meski sudah dipandu oleh pendaki-pendaki yang berpengalaman.Kami berhasil. Kami sudah mendaki Everest. Untuk beberapa waktu, keadaan diatas memang sulit, tetapi akhirnya semua berakhir dengan baik.Baru beberapa jam kemudian aku menyadari bahwa ternyata semuanya tidak berakhir baik---bahwa sembilan belas pria dan wanita terdampar diatas gunung karena badai, terperangkap dalam perjuangan berat untuk mempertahankan hidup mereka.Penggambaran karakter-karakter yang terlibat (bejibun dah) disajikan menarik dengan alasan-alasan mereka untuk ikut ekspedisi. Misalnya Beck Weathers yang ditinggalkan karena disangka sudah tewas (setengah koma) dalam hamparan salju selama 12 jam namun secara ajaib bisa "bangkit dari kuburan salju" dan kembali ke camp 4. Seorang Sandy Pittman yang dalam kondisi histeris, meracau dan setengah koma yang harus diseret seorang sherpa untuk sampai ke puncak. Suasana ketika mereka terjebak badai, tersesat, keputusan yang salah, kesetiakawanan, moralitas, egoisme, rasa bersalah yang berkepanjangan dinarasikan dengan bagus oleh Krakauer. At some degrees, gw "setuju" kalo ada anggapan bahwa para pendaki gunung (Everest) adalah orang-orang sinting. Tapi disisi lain, mustahil untuk tidak menghargai dan mengagumi determinasi, ketahanan fisik dan semangat pantang menyerah mereka. Bahkan untuk seorang Sandy Pittman sekalipun! (gw gak simpati ama selebriti haus publisitas ini) tapi untuk urusan keberanian menghadapi resiko dan untuk determinasi menyelesaikan pendakian gw secara sportif angkat topi buat dia. That's what I learned from this book.Sayangnya, jenis individu yang diprogram untuk mengabaikan tekanan pribadi dan memaksa mendaki sampai puncak biasanya diprogram untuk juga mengabaikan tanda-tanda datangnya bencana yang sudah sangat dekat. Inilah intisari dilema yang akhirnya dihadapi para pendaki Everest ; untuk meraih sukses, anda harus punya motivasi yang sangat kuat, tetapi, jika anda terlalu termotivasi, anda berisiko menemui ajal. Selain itu, pada ketinggian lebih dari 26.000 kaki, sulit membedakan antara semangat yang layak dan demam puncak yang membuat seseorang berbuat nekat karena batasnya benar-benar tipis. Itu sebabnya, lereng Everest dipenuhi oleh mayat.Catatan: buku ini mengundang kontroversi dan tentangan oleh sejumlah orang (terutama dari keluarga yang meninggal) dan orang-orang yang "dikecam" Krakauer karena dianggap tidak membuat "keputusan yang benar" ketika terjadi badai. Gw jadi penasaran berat ama buku The Climb (disebut-sebut buku tandingan Into Thin Air) yang ditulis oleh Anatoli Boukreev orang yang "dikecam" Krakauer. Sepertinya menarik untuk membandingkan dua perspektif yang berbeda untuk suatu kejadian yang sama. Kenapa menarik? Pertama; Boukreev adalah seorang pendaki handal yang lebih berpengalaman daripada Krakauer (dua kali mencapai puncak everest tanpa bantuan oksigen) sehingga dia pasti punya pandangan sendiri yang mungkin tidak diketahui/disadari Krakauer. Kedua; Boukreev termasuk orang ikut menerjang badai untuk mencari dan menolong rekan-rekannya yang terjebak badai, sementara Krakauer sendiri ketika badai terjadi sudah "aman" di Camp 4 dalam kondisi linglung dan ambruk karena kelelahan.But, regardless all the controvesy, in my humble opinion, Krakauer has done everything he could to put things into perspective. Read this book, you won't be sorry *sotoy mode on*halah... kepanjangan euy! beginilah resiko nulis review jam 2 subuh, suka ngelantur kemana-mana :DErieformer mountain climber wannabe yang masih menangisi kegagalannya "menaklukan" gunung... *bisik-bisik sambil nutupin muka pake panci* ... Tangkuban Parahu
What do You think about Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Mount Everest Disaster (1999)?
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