Have you ever wanted to do something so extravagant that you weren’t thinking about the consequences? The real life narrative “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer is exactly that. This book explains how one man’s journey to Mt. Everest in spring ’96 turns into a nightmare. Two groups ascended the mountain. One group is led by a young man named Scott Fisher called Mountain Madness. And another group which Jon Krakauer was in, led by Rob Hall called Adventure Consultants. Many individuals wanted to get to the top of Mt. Everest for multiple reasons. Whether to be recognized in the paper or to fulfill a lifelong dream, many people from different backgrounds and ethnicities came together to climb this mountain. But what many of them didn’t know was all of the effects and all of the factors that would come into play during the ascent and descent. The layout of the mountain is, Base Camp, Camp One, Camp Two, Camp Three, Camp Four, or as everybody else would call it, “The Death Zone”. And they are not wrong for giving it that title. All of the clients had a problem adjusting to the altitude. Jon Krakauer’s guide, Rob Hall had a strict turn-around time at 2:00 pm, no matter how …show more content…
He is an excellent guide and very consistent, He is incredibly heroic and he helped to save the lives of five other clients. He grew very close with one of the other clients named Yasuko Namba. She was one that unfortunately perished. He states “she was so little. I can still feel her fingers sliding across my biceps, and then letting go, I never even turned to look back” (Krakauer, 301). He was in an emotional state of grief when this happens. He says this due to the fact that he will never be able to forgive himself for all of the people that died and what he experienced that spring of 1996. There was nothing Neal could have done in that freezing weather. Moreover, he tried to save her but was unable to, sad to
Krakauer’s techniques promote understanding and reasoning. So the readers interpret his use of romanticism and interviews as a way to promote veracity. For the reader to answer on their own all of the reason that lead up to why Chris McCandless failed to make it out of Alaska alive. He tells the story from interesting point of views and even leaves a final saying from McCandless that happiness is only with family and friends. Would McCandless have returned home after this trip or did the idea of dying make him change his thoughts. Or live his life in based on the saying “rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth”(Terra Incognita films).
Into Thin Air begins with author Jon Krakauer being hired to write for a magazine about the commercialism on Mount Everest. While researching, Krakauer’s curiosity and courage gets the best of him, and he decides to climb the mountain. After staying at the Base Camp for weeks, Krakauer and his group still have difficulty adjusting to the altitude and living conditions. Little do Krakauer and his teammates know, but the original adjustment to the mountain is going to be the least of their problems. During the journey up and down the mountain, the weather, altitude, physical exhaustion and climbing mistakes get the best of the group. In an effort to keep everyone safe, the climbers established a “turn around time” stating that any climber that
This became the deadliest expedition to ever climb, with 15 people losing their lives. Krakauer explains his intrinsic motivations to accept this challenge and many of the mistakes that helped lead to the disasters of that day. He includes himself, and explicitly blames himself for at least one person's death. The experience affects him profoundly, and in addition to telling the story, the book focuses on how Krakauer is forever changed as a result of what happened. All of the clients have difficulty adjusting to the altitude, tiring easily, losing weight and moving slowly.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is an adventurous story about a Mount Everest expedition gone wrong. The journey up the mountain is like previous trips, but once they reach the top of the mountain all hell breaks loose. A massive storm traps climbers stuck on the top of the mountain with little to no oxygen, no shelter, and nowhere to go. Oxygen depletion alone can kill someone and make them vulnerable to novice mistakes. Krakauer notices when he is lacking oxygen as he says, “The world beyond the rubber mask was stupendously vivid but seemed not quite real, as if a movie were being projected in slow motion across the front of my goggles. I felt drugged, disengaged, thoroughly insulated from external stimuli” (179). HACE, a medical condition in which the brain swells, is caused by a lack of oxygen and can kill people within 48 hours if not treated. With a lack of shelter, the climbers are exposed to Artic-like conditions.
He acted on his thrill and was not being rational. When he got home from his adventure through Arizona he decided that his trip was so freeing he wanted to go on another one. This time he would tackle Alaska. In preparation for his trip to Alaska “he donated the $20,000 in his bank account to Oxfam, loaded up his car, and disappeared. From then on he scrupulously avoided contacting either of his parents or Carnie, the sister for whom he purportedly cared immensely” (Krakauer 8).
The cost for a guide to bring someone up the mountain can be upwards to $70,000. People wanted to go regardless of their health and condition and guides would just do their job and just lead people up without knowing if they are weak or not ready for the climb.”Why did veteran Himalayan guides keep moving upward, ushering a gaggle of relatively inexperienced amateurs […] into an apparent death trap?”(Krakauer 8). This quote is an example of how the guides treat the people climbing up the mountain with the. They disregard the condition and state the people are and just keeping leading them up asking or knowing if they are weak and not ready for the climb up. Not only is this part of guide’s fault for people becoming injured or dead it is also the person’s fault for not thinking about themselves and the state and condition they are in to try to climb up the mountain.”It can't be stressed enough, moreover, that Hall, Fischer, and the rest of us were forced to make such critical decisions while severely impaired with hypoxia”(Krakauer 285). Jon Krakauer is responsible for some of the deaths of people mentioned in the book because of the decisions he made. Krakauer himself said he had guilt for not fully helping the people with hypoxia. The timing and decisions he made for descending back down also did play a role in how he caused some people to die instead of helping
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, uses motivation to make the protagonist feel and behave a certain way. The author uses struggles to show the theme of perseverance.
The novel "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer, he writes about an experience that changes his life when Outside magazine asks him to write an article about the commercialism of Mount Everest, he knew from that moment that he needed to climb the mountain. But of course his expedition does not go as expected. On May 10th Krakauer reaches the summit after a extremely stressful and treacherous trek up, but only to have to scale down the mountain with his team in one of the most dangerous seasons in the history of Everest. Many things went wrong when they came down the mountain and throughout this book, Jon attempts to evaluate what exactly happened and how things went wrong. He researches and figures out every person actions on that mountain. He has speculations about the failures of the expedition, and blames the catastrophe due to a series of little
Even though Krakauer was biased and skewed the story to favor Chris McCandless he proves to be a credible author. He proves his assertions about Chris and gains credibility by admitting to his bias and collecting first hand information.
Climbing makes for a difficult expedition, you need to give up the wrappers when you was ascending. You need to give up the heavy things, you need to give up your wrappers, and you need to give yourselves. Sometimes we need to give up our lives to climb the mount Everest. According to snow storm, the energy, the oxygen and the people who desired prove themselves the spring’s 96s expedition to mountain Everest was destined to be the most tragic.
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson Touching the Void is an autobiography written by Joe Simpson about his adventure with his friend Simon Yates attempting to be the first to climb Siula Grande in Lima, Peru. The story retells the successful ascent to the summit and the lucky escape from death on the way down. During the descent , Joe's ice pick didn’t hold on the steep ice face. This lead to him falling, breaking his leg and having to be lowered down the mountain by Simon, which led into a situation where Joe fell into a crevasse.
Chris McCandless is regarded as being something as a spiritual figure almost as a cult hero, some call him a disillusioned fool, some call him a great adventurer, and the debate still continues. As Matthew Power calls in his article, an article where he tells the story of McCandless,“The debate falls into two camps: Krakauer's visionary seeker, the tragic hero who dared to live the unmediated life he had dreamed of and died trying; or, as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with.” Like so many stories covering Christopher McCandless’ death, both ends of the argument are discussed in an unfavored manner in the hopes to help develop an opinion on the McCandless story. This open ended question can only be answered open-endedly based on what the readers base for themselves as covered stories intend. Like Power has done, ...
Imagine feeling guilty for making it out alive on a journey. In the nonfiction novel, Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, he documents his journey to the summits of Mount Everest and ultimately accuses himself of holding responsible for the disaster on the mountain. After realizing only one-fourth of the people that climbed to the summits on May 10, 1996, made it back down to base camp alive, Krakauer theorizes why that was so. He attributes most of the reason for the disaster to the erratic weather, along with hubris, who wanted the thought of leading a group to the mountain. Despite those reasons, there is no ultimate reason for the deaths documented in the book, but bottom line the climbers that died didn’t thoroughly comprehend the danger they were going to encounter as a consequence that contributed to the disaster.
Everest is an unbelievable mountain that has taken the lives of a number of the greatest climbers in history. It was my job to ensure that clients make it up that treacherous mountain safely. My name is Rob Hall. I was the main guide and cofounder of a climbing company called Adventure Consultants. My friend, Gary Ball, and I used to be professional climbers. Together we succeeded in climbing to the highest summit on each of the seven continents in seven months. This was our greatest achievement. After this, we decided to start our own company guiding clients up large mountains. In May 1992, we successfully led six clients to the summit of Everest. Unfortunately, Gary died of cerebral edema in October 1993 during an attempt on the world’s sixth-tallest mountain. He died in my arms and the next day I buried him in a crevasse. Despite the pain that his death had caused me, I continued guiding for our company and eventually led thirty-nine climbers to the summit of Everest.
Given the recent Everest tragedy over the weekend with the biggest loss of lives to date, this case study rings particularly poignant. It’s hard to think of a higher-staked situation than making a summit bid for Mount Everest. The responsibility in such a trek weighs heavy on the leader, but does not need to fall on his shoulders alone. Had Fischer been more willing to share credit, fostering a team-oriented environment, he might still be around today to bask in the glory of his ambitious undertaking.