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Commentary On Into Thin Air By Jon Krakauer

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Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is a non-fiction book which is about the Mt.Everest disaster that happened in 1996. Jon Krakauer, an acclaimed author and journalist is called by Outside magazine to join a guided group to reach climb Everest in order to write an article providing facts about the commercialization of Mount Everest. Jon has previous experiences with mountain climbing and wants to go, unknowingly joining the most disastrous Everest expedition in history. He joins a climbing service called the Adventure Consultants, guided by Rob Hall. The guided service is intended to speed up the acclimatization process and hopefully guide clients to the top safely. The Everest climb is structured into camps: Base Camp, Camp One, Camp Two, Camp Three, and Camp Four. After spending many weeks at Base Camp the group plans to make a number of trips to the other camps and back to speed up the acclimatization, or adjusting to the mountain, process. …show more content…

Krakauer also sees some climbers who have paid as much as $65,000 to join a guided group that would lead them to the summit. Krakauer makes the point that high-altitude climbing is dangerous even for the most veteran of climbers let alone for any novice group member. The author outright states that some of the novices were not qualified to climb Mount Everest. Because of this situation, Krakauer witnessed experienced guides taking on more responsibility than usually would be necessary. As the climb on the way to the summit the author as well as many of his group mates experience the painful experience associated with climbing such as agonizing headaches, loss of strength, and loss of brain cells. The team also witness other injuries and deaths in other guided groups that remind them that climbing Everest is not

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296 Words | 2 Pages

Jon Krakauer is looking to fulfill a childhood ambition by finally climbing Mount Everest. After being assigned to write a brief piece about the mountain for Outside magazine, Krakauer manages to convince his bosses to fund a full-fledged expedition to the top. Bold. Krakauer is climbing with Adventure Consultants, a commercial group led by experienced climber Rob Hall. The journalist befriends several members of his group, such as Andy Harris, a guide, and Doug Hansen, a fellow client and postal worker back home.

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814 Words | 4 Pages

As the team ascends to camp one they face there first route or area known as Icefall. It’s given this name due too a large glacier that moves everyday, it also forces the climbers to use dangerous roping techniques that cause them to ascend parts of Icefall independently and not roped to other climbers for support. Once at the top of camp one, Krakauer tries to help one of the sherpa move some equipment up quickly realizes that all physical labor is a heavy and difficult burden on the body. Krakauer later summits to camp two and finds that his body is even weaker the higher up he is. At camp three the winds are very high and temperatures are below zero at night.

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513 Words | 3 Pages

Many of them are inexperienced and would undoubtedly never make it to the top without a guide. The one unifying characteristic shared by all of the climbers is that they have money—enough to shell out $65,000 a piece for their shot at the top. Krakauer spends long chapters giving his best, most educated guesses about why climbers made certain decisions, and what happened to the people who disappeared. This is an exercise that must result in major frustration, as no one can be entirely sure what took place. Many mistakes later, Krakauer manages to piece together an outline of what happened to whom and when during the climb, but the questions he struggles with in almost every situation are "why" and "how".

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974 Words | 4 Pages

, it is important to note that the characters portrayed in this book are real people. The unique conditions and the weather of the setting forced the climbers to make choices that they could not have made in a different situation. The tough choices made by the climbers and the setting influenced the result of the story. Krakauer’s tone for the most part is respectful toward the guides and climbers, and he narrates as objectively as possible, while including his own concerns and doubts. His tone in the beginning expresses excitement and nervousness, but later turns into

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1031 Words | 5 Pages

Mountain climbing is a very tough activity that includes years of training before someone is ready to complete an exhilarating climb. Looking around the world, there are many amazing places to climb. Although two of the most difficult and intense climbs include the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska and Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on earth. “Everest,” by Erik Weihenmayer and “The Devils Thumb,” by Jon Krakauer have some similarities and some differences in terms of the author’s perspective, organization structure, and tone and word choice. As the two authors wrote, they showed their struggles and feats of every situation through words.

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1106 Words | 5 Pages

When Krakauer confesses his doubts to Hall, Hall responds, “‘It’s worked thirty-nine times so far, pal,’ Hall assured me with a crooked grin when I confessed my doubts. ‘And a few of the blokes who’ve summited with me were nearly as pathetic as you’” (74). However, this time it didn’t work, leaving Hall, some of his clients, and others dead with him. The reader is left with the overall question of what happened this year with better climbers that everything went

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753 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Into thin air, a few groups of climbers attempt to climb Mt. Everest.   The group of expeditions made unwise dissection that caused people to get bad injuries and even death. Jon Krakuaer had made a few dumb mistake errors himself too he was the cause of Andy Harris and the horrible amputations of Beck Weathers.

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598 Words | 3 Pages

There are many challenges and obstacles that we face, both mentally and physically in life. After reading, “Into Thin Air,” written by Jon Krakauer, he shares his, along with others experiences of climbing Mount Everest. During this journey, climbers had to mentally and physically prepare themselves for any obstacles that headed their way. Krakauer, in particular, had prior climbing experience, but wasn’t as experience in higher altitudes such as Everest. Unfortunately, some climbers didn’t make it out alive.

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499 Words | 2 Pages

Imagine having to put your life in the hands of someone you just met. In the book “Into Thin Air” written by Jon Krakauer, Jon writes about his story of the disaster that occurred on Mt. Everest the day of May 10, 1996. On this expedition, Jon’s life was put in the the hands of Rob Hall, his expedition leader, a day before he started his ascent to the summit. Paying thousands of dollars to Hall, Jon relied on Hall to make the right decisions on Everest to keep him safe. While this was the case in the end for Jon, it wasn’t the same for five of his fellow climbers.

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1257 Words | 6 Pages

The events that occurred on Everest during the famous 1996 expedition are recollected by Jon Krakauer through his memories and multiple interviews. Throughout his research, Krakauer was able to piece together everything that transpired during the deadly voyage. The book starts on the top of the world, Krakauer has just reached the peak of Everest and he is prepared to start back down. After the first chapter, Jon Krakauer starts to backtrack. He begins giving descriptions at the beginning of the expedition before they even got onto the mountain, details about every person who will be on the mountain.

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826 Words | 4 Pages

Out of the four years that Hall summited Everest, two of them happened on May 10th. On this at the date the weather was always good; high visibility, clear skies, and good temperature. Everyone on Hall's team who has reached the summit on this date successfully descended the mountain (pg. 182). However, this year was different. Some people decided to back down on reaching the summit because they either lost all strength or were scared that whatever obstacles are waiting ahead might just be worse than what they have already experienced before (pg. 192).

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1190 Words | 5 Pages

While learning of the conditions of the climbers, the reader is given a better picture of what the reality was of climbing Everest. As the climbers scale the mountain, it demands more and more physical endurance. The climbers feel themselves deteriorating, even breathing is difficult. “[At Camp Three] Brain cells were dying. Our blood was growing dangerously thick and sludgelike.

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1249 Words | 5 Pages

For as long as anyone can remember, people have dreamed of reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. During May of 1996, an expedition set out to Nepal to attempt a climb up Mt. Everest. By the end of this expedition to the top of Everest, many climbers lost their lives due to the brutal weather. In Jon Krakauer’s novel Into Thin Air, he takes readers through the story of the expedition, and he talks about the climbers who died. Among the list of the dead was a man named Doug Hansen.

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1148 Words | 5 Pages

Efforts to save Ngawang were fruitless, and he died within months (Krakauer 148). Every climber on Everest is susceptible to the same fate: the mountain has no mercy to

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1979 Words | 8 Pages

Sherpas or Nepalese were the ones who died during this incident. In an article published in the New York Times, Nida Najar and Bhadra Sharma, say, "delegation of government officials from Nepal's Ministry Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation will visit the Mount Everest base camp on Thursday in an attempt to salvage the expedition season even as Sherpa mountain guides, support staff and foreign tour operators, shaken by an avalanche that killed over a dozen Nepalese guides last Friday, begin to pack up their gear and head home". This is a perfect example that proves that Mount Everest expeditions are only being done for the money. I find it pathetic that the Nepalese government is trying to "save the expedition" while over a dozen of it's own people died while many others were injured. Sherpa's make about $125 per climb, while carrying 20 pounds, although they sometimes double the load to get a bigger pay (Barry).

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