Book review: 'Into Thin Air'

“Into Thin Air” – by Jon Krakauer (pub. 1997)

On Mount Everest in 1996, twelve men and women died on the mountain within a few days – the result of a storm moving in as several climbing expeditions were all trying to get to the top at once.

Climber-author Krakauer was there on assignment for Outside magazine to report on the commercialization of mountain climbing. Because of the economic tourism benefits, Everest and other popular mountains have become magnets for adventuresome wannabes who pay many thousands of dollars for guided trips to places like the highest point in the world.

Coincidently, with the Walter Mitty movie out, Krakauer twice makes references to Mitty types in this book, contrasting dreams and reality.

This is a fascinating work, with gut-wrenching honesty about survival and later self-doubt about what could have been done differently to save others (nothing).

Along the way are several deep insights:

• “Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed.” Climber George Leigh Mallory explained it tersely: “Because it is there.”

• the mechanics of crossing the Icefall: “. . . the ability to tiptoe in mountaineering boots and crampons across three wobbly ladders lashed end to end, bridging a sphincter-clenching chasm. There were many such crossings, and I never got used to them.”

• Passing by a body and a half on the way up: “The first body had left me badly shaken for several hours; the shock of encountering the second wore off almost immediately.”

• Being a guided client instead of a climber, Krakauer observed: “the most rewarding aspects of mountaineering derive from the sport’s emphasis on self-reliance, on making critical decisions and dealing with the consequences, on personal responsibility. When you sign on as a client, I discovered, you are forced to give up all of that . . . a responsible guide will always insist on calling the shots . . . he can’t afford to let each client make important decisions independently.”

• While the toll of 12 deaths in spring 1996 was the worst single-season since climbing Everest began 75 years earlier, Krakauer later is able to look at the statistics another way: “The 12 fatalities amounted to only 3 percent of the 398 climbers who ascended higher than Base Camp – which is actually slightly below the historical fatality rate of 3.3 percent . . . between 1921 and May 1996, 144 people died and the peak was climbed some 630 times – a ratio of one in four. Last spring [1996], 12 climbers died and 84 reached the summit – a ratio of one in seven. Compared to these historical standards, 1996 was actually a safer-than-average year.”

• And finally: “Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet . . . now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.”