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.
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".
, 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
“When climbing at high altitudes there is a chance of high altitude sickness, which can lead to dizziness, headaches, and numerous more problems (Blum 65).” Every time Arlene went mountaineering she was putting herself in these hazardous scenarios, but this is her passion. She has seen many of her companions experience this, but thankfully rarely experienced the affects. In addition Arlene Blum quotes in clear detail of the trials regarding heath issues in a part of the book Breaking Trail. “I felt so wretched that I didn’t care that I wasn’t climbing, something was very wrong (Blum 129).”
However, his unseasoned nature and critical attitude towards some of the more experienced climbers and their decision making some readers consider Krakauer to be less of a hero and more of an onlooker with a poor attitude. In subjective
Jon Krakauer is a journalist who was hired by Outside Magazine to write an article about commercialism on Mt. Everest. Mt. Everest, being separated by camps each increasing in altitude is not an easy feat so he was originally tasked by the magazine to only climb up to base camp which was the lowest camp. Inspired by his childhood dreams to reach the top of Mt. Everest, Krakauer requests the magazine to financially aid his expedition to the summit. He joins the climbing service Adventure Consultants which is owned by a famous climber named Rob Hall. Hall would hopefully guide his clients including Krakauer to the summit if everything went according to plan.
It was a dangerous climb, “I put a foot through a snow bridge spanning a slot so deep I couldn’t see the bottom of it….I bent over double with dry heaves, thinking about what it would be like to be lying in a pile at the bottom of the crevasse, waiting for death to come, with nobody aware of how or where I’d met my end” (Krakauer, 139). Krakauer survived that climb and managed to reach his destination which some may think was an act of bravery, but only because he survived. The inclusion of his experience is the use of ethos, he has personal experience which he uses to convince the audience that he is reliable and his opinion should be considered worthy. If the reader doesn’t think he was insane, why should they assume McCandless was.
If it takes a “mountain police” or something to that length to enforce the rules on the mountain, that length should be taken. It is in the interest of safety to do so. For example, national parks have law enforcement officers called “park rangers”. They keep the peace and enforce rules that protect these parks. Something similar could be created to serve Everest and its increasing climber
Doug Hansen never stopped believing in his wildest dreams and kept going to reach the top of the summit by unfortunately dying up there due to the extreme storm. Jon Krakauer had this same will power of seeing this dream through and once at the top of the summit he says, “I had attained a goal I’d coveted since childhood.” (Krakauer 189) Jon is one of the lucky ones who actually made it to the top and back down to base camp. This determination helped get these brave climbers to the top of the summit to get a true sense of how powerful it’s to see a goal completed.
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.
Climbing the mountain, a risky task for all- with death right around the corner. Jon Krakauer recaps his experience participating in a 1996 expedition to Mount Everest in his novel, Into Thin Air. During the expedition, he recalls near-death experiences on Everest, a variety caused by the severe lack of oxygen and subzero weather. A certain memory embedded into Krakauer 's mind for all eternity has to be after reaching his destination (Camp Four). According to Jon Krakauer, he discovered “nineteen men and women were stranded up on the mountain… caught in a desperate struggle for their lives” (Krakauer, Jon).
Furthermore, paragraph 17 of the article describes why Mount Everest should be closed to tourists. According to Stynton in paragraph 17, "Five years before Sir Edmund Hillary died, he said publicly that the Nepalese government should stop allowing climbers on Everest and give the mountain a break for a few years. " Stynton also explains how "Some local people believe that avalanches and earthquakes mean the mountain gods are angry and it's time to stay away." This detail shows the opposite side of the debate about Mount Everest- that it should be closed down for climbers. The testimonial from Hillary and the local myths about the mountain gods show that closing access to Everest will benefit the Nepalese government by proving that it respects both the wishes of climbers like Hillary and the locals' religious beliefs.
Many things could go wrong climbing the highest mountain in the world with an elevation of 29,029 ft. 12 people died climbing Mount Everest. No is responsible for those death. The climbers had chosen to climb the mountain. In the novel it states, “Hall was charging $65,000 a head to guide clients to the top of the world” (Krakauer 35). This shows that a person is willing to pay to go through so much pain, risk and sickness to summit the top of the world.
Mountaineering is a sport in which people put matter of sensibility. There is no gain in climbing a mountain or an award, it’s just for personal pride. The most popular mountain, and the tallest mountain, Everest, can create problems because of how much commercialization Everest gets. Since the commercialization of Everest is so popular; non-experienced climbers are able to be guided up Everest, which can create harm to themselves and to others. People who climb Everest now sadly can substitute money for experience which can also create harm to themselves and to others.
People that mountain climb do not know what they are getting into if they get hurt or stuck. People that mountain climb do not have the capabilities to climb. That is why people die climbing each year. Rangers should not be responsible for your actions that you make in a life-or-death situation. This is why I think people do not have the right to rescue the services when they put themselves at risk because people do not have the capabilities and it is dangerous for the Rangers if you got hurt or stuck.
