Book Report On Into Thin Air

Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. New York: Villard, 1997. Print.

Jon Krakauer, the writer of Into Thin Air, is not only an author but a mountaineer.

When Krakauer was nine years old Unsoeld, a family friend and an incredibly successful mountaineer, shared tales of his adventures causing Jon to have a deep fascination with mountaineering.This started his lifelong love affair with Everest. Jon’s dream of Everest was fulfilled when Krakauer was chosen to summit, with the Rob Hall's expedition, in order to write an article for Outside magazine. During that trip to the summit Jon Krakauer faced a horrible storm that cost many lives. After a year Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air as a way to assess what happened on that fateful day and to relieve his

Throughout the book Krakauer gives detailed information on climbing history of Everest (as it pertains to the expedition) in between his personal experiences that he faced on that mountain. As Krakauer is speaking on the devastating climb he touches on the historical events, such as the commercialization of Everest, that heavily influenced Hall’s expedition. The commercialization of Everest started in 1985 when Dick Bass, a regular fifty five year old man with limited climbing experience, submitted to the top of Everest under the wing of David Breashears, an extremely talented mountaineer. This pioneering of the commercialization of Everest gave Rob Hall the lift to start his own business, Adventure Consultants. The commercialization of Everest was also the reason for the Outside magazine article that sparked Jon’s

Despite this devastating and life threatening blow Jon still prevails and makes his way down where a hoard of supplemental oxygen awaits him. When Jon reaches the mount of canisters Harris informs him that they are all empty and sacrifices his own bottle to Krakauer. Jon, skeptical of validity of that statement, checks for himself and concludes that most are full. With this reasoning Jon, correctly, infers that Andy Harris is infact suffering from an undetermined high altitude sickness. The weather had taken a turn in the wrong direction making visibility plummet, though even in these conditions Jon still stumbled on and curiously found Beck Weathers. Beck was sat alone shivering when Jon found him and confessed that he was suffering from major vision ailments and was almost completely blinded. Beck also spoke of the strict rule Hall set for him, that if his vision got that bad he would wait for him and Beck abided by those rules, declining Jon's help. Jon, delirious, made his way down to Camp Four with Andy Harris, he was ecstatic that it was finally