Product Description

This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest, when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1411 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 293 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Into Thin Air is a riveting first-hand account of a catastrophic expedition up Mount Everest. In March 1996, Outside magazine sent veteran journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall and the other leaders, by the end of summit day eight people were dead. Krakauer's book is at once the story of the ill-fated adventure and an analysis of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the events it chronicles, Into Thin Air clearly evokes the majestic Everest landscape. As the journey up the mountain progresses, Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The author's own anguish over what happened on the mountain is palpable as he leads readers to ponder timeless questions.

Review
On 9 May 1996, Mount Everest was swarming with people as five expeditions were poised to tackle its summit. Of the teams, three were commercial outfits, guiding inexperienced mountaineers to the summit, and Krakauer, a journalist and experienced mountaineer, was accompanying one of these in order to write an article about this controversial new development in Himalayan mountaineering. Within 24 hours, however, Krakauer found himself participating in a tragedy of awesome proportions as a huge storm swept over the mountain, finally killing eight people and leaving others fighting for their lives. Prior to the climb, Krakauer had misgivings about the nature of the expedition but its leader, Rob Hall, had a good track record and had been responsible for pioneering this development in mountain climbing. He ran his expeditions effectively and successfully, and his business was going from strength to strength. However, as Krakauer shows, mountain climbing as a business is very different to mountain climbing as a sport, and brings with it many new pressures which can cloud the judgement or force decisions that would otherwise not have been made. Krakauer suggests that the people in the party were, for the most part, simply not up to making the ascent, himself included, and similarly criticizes the other commercial parties. His account suggests that there was insufficient training or preparation before the ascents were made. Nevertheless, even while recognizing his own inexperience, Krakauer climbed the mountain and reached its summit. His account of the storm and its aftermath makes for harrowing reading, as exhausted climbers struggled to rescue those still stuck on the mountain, or else accept that they were incapable of helping. Terrible blunders were made - Krakauer himself made errors in identifying the whereabouts of other party members. Still others singlemindedly made their way to the top of the mountain, unable to bring themselves to stop and help those they passed. Into Thin Air is a meticulous account of events of May 1996. Yet Krakauer still fails to address the central issue on which he was originally reporting - the validity of commercially organized expeditions to Everest. He has been criticized by relatives of those who died for his effortless ability to determine what everyone was thinking and to analyse what went wrong, and certainly his detachment and perfect hindsight are hard to bear. Even so, Krakauer's account is a useful addition to the growing collection of books on the tragic events of those two days. (Kirkus UK)

And onto thin ice - Krakauer's (Into the Wild, 1995) hypnotic, rattling, firsthand account of a commercial expedition up Mt. Everest that went way wrong. In the spring of 1996, Krakauer took an assignment from Outside magazine to report on the burgeoning industry of commercially guided, high-altitude climbing. Many experienced alpinists were dismayed that the fabled 8,000-meter summits were simply "being sold to rich parvenues" with neither climbing grace nor talent, but possessed of colossal egos. From childhood, Krakauer had wanted to climb Everest; he was an expert on rock and ice, although he had never sojourned at Himalayan altitudes. While it has become popular to consider climbing Everest a lark and the South Col approach little more than a yak route, Krakauer found the altitude a malicious force that turned his blood to sludge and his extremities to wood, that ate his brain cells. Much of the time he lived in a hypoxic stupor, despite the standard acclimatization he underwent. As he tells of his own struggles, he plaits his tale with stories of his climbing comrades, describes the often outrageous characters on other expeditions, and details the history of Everest exploration. The writing builds eerily, portentously to the summit day, fingering little glitches that were piling up, "a slow accrual, compounding imperceptibly, steadily toward critical mass," when a rogue storm overtook the climbers; typical by Everest standards, it was ferocious in the extreme. Time collapses as, minute-by-minute, Krakauer rivetingly and movingly chronicles what ensued, much of which is near agony to read. Unjustly, Krakauer holds himself culpable for aspects of the disaster, but this book will serve an important purpose if it gives even one person pause before tackling Everest. A brilliantly told story, and one that won't go begging when the year's literary honors are doled out. (Kirkus Reviews)

From the Publisher
Other books by Jon Krakauer
Readers might like to know that there are two other books by Jon Krakauer currently available. Into The Wild (according to Paul Theroux 'a fascinating story of idealism, fantasy and the dark side of the wilderness experience) is a Macmillan hardcover price £14.99, coming in Pan paperback in March 1999 at £5.99 and Eiger Dreams, a riveting collection of Jon Krakauer's writings on mountaineering is currently available in Pan paperback at £5.99

Customer Reviews

An excellent read.
Whether you have an interest in mountaineering or not, this book is difficult to put down. To a non-alpinist, the author has succeeded in portraying the story behind this tragedy in such a way that in the first few chapters, you begin to toy with the idea that mountaineering might hold some attraction. However, in the telling of the summit tragedy and the events thereafter the idea that Everest might be a seductive force is completely erased and you are left with a feeling of utmost horror and helplessness at what these people went through. There is a realisation that it's not just about getting to the summit - mountaineers have a mind-set which demands further examination by lesser mortals.

Jon Krakauer is a gifted writer and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book to get totally immersed in. I couldn't put it down and read it cover to cover twice.

Into Thin Air
A detailed and personal account of the '96 Everest disaster. This book provides a fascinating armchair understanding of the physical/mental demands of high altitude climbing and the events leading up to the tragedy that killed 12 people. This account created a widespread fascination of the event, along with widespread debate and controversy. If there is a must read in the mountaineering world, this is it.

Brilliant but flawed
Krakauer is a great writer and mountaineer and in my view has produced the most gripping account of the horrific events on Everest that fateful day. Unfortunately though, he seems compelled to aportion blame for the tragedy that unfolded. Judging retrospectively, as it is always much easier to do, it is evident that certain questionable decisions compounded this tragedy. But some of Krakauer's views and subsequent comments in the book seem both inaccurate and ignorant given the facts disclosed by other survivors - particularly his views on the actions of the guide Anatoli Boukreev, who's amazing efforts, made possible by his earlier contentious decision, saved 3 lives. Enjoy the book, but read some of the other accounts of the tragedy before drawing your own conclusions.