I’d read a couple of Jon Krakauer’s books already, most notably the excellent Into the Wild, but I didn’t feel much interest in reading Into Thin Air, I guess because mountain climbing doesn’t strike me as terribly interesting. My wife raved about the book, though, and when she brought it back from a neighbourhood Little Free Library I decided to give it a shot.
I’m glad I did. The story is well-written and compelling, as it chronicles a disastrous expedition to summit Mount Everest in the spring of 1996. Krakauer frames the story expertly, beginning with the momentary triumph and a brief portent of things to come, before backing up on the circumstances that led to his joining the expedition, the preparation, and the multi-stage ascent. He weaves in background to give the story greater context, giving the history of the mountain’s discovery by western surveyors (locals knew it long before, of course), the early aborted attempts at the summit, and Edmund Hillary’s 1953 triumph.
With the groundwork laid, the story builds towards the seemingly inevitable tragedy, as Krakauer chronicles with clinical efficiency the dozens of tiny failings (including his own), missteps, and unfortunate circumstances that cuminated in one of the worst single-day disasters in the mountain’s bloody history. A post-script discusses the controversy that emerged in the book’s aftermath, and dismantles some of the claims made against its accuracy. I haven’t read the counterpoint, but Krakauer’s rebuttals are convincing, and it certainly seems that his breadth of after the fact interviews was much greater than those of his detractor.
Krakauer’s prose is elevated but visceral, painting a clear picture of the prolonged misery of trying to climb the world’s highest mountain. I obviously never thought it would be easy, but wha tsurprised me was the time committment involved. I didn’t know that simply reaching the summit required nearly a month of acclimatization efforts simply to ensure you didn’t drop dead once you passed 28,000 feet. Doesn’t seem worth it to me, frankly, but I guess it takes all kinds. I’ll stick to reading about it afterwards.