Death: Your Climbing Partner
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson is based on two skilled climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. They are trying to reach summit at Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. They are climbing from the West Face, something that no one had ever achieved. They are climbing in Alpine style all the way through. There is another person with them, Richard, but he stays back at base camp to watch over their belongings. Both climbers are very different from each other. Joe seems to look up to Simon as a guide and inspiration. They endure a horrible tragedy while climbing down the mountain. They try to work together, but can only go so far once a bond is broken. The first couple of days climbing seem to go normal. The
…show more content…
The cutting of the rope. In Alpine style climbing, you depend on your partner quite a lot. Alpine style climbing is full of no going back commitments. This means climbing to the top often with minimal gear, food and fuel, crossing thresholds, like severe overhangs where abseils are impossible, and sometimes sacrificing comfort, warmth, sleep and nourishment to obtain the objective (Szalay). Climbing in this style is extremely risky and full of thrill. Your partner and you have a small amount of gear and depend entirely on each other. It is like a rhythm. One makes a move, the other has to do the same. Both partners have to be synced together and willing to work with each other. Simon was looked down upon when the climbing community found out he cut the rope that was attached to Joe. Many viewed that as a bond that should never be cut, literally and figuratively. Personally, I don't believe I have the guts to cut a rope knowing a person's life depends on it. This issue is something climbing partners should talk about before hand. If Joe and Simon had agreed on something before climbing Siula Grande, maybe things could've gone differently. If I am climbing a mountain with someone and there is a huge chance that I can fall, get injured, or die on the mountain. I am surely going to climb with a partner whom I know is going to try until the last moment to help me. I am not saying that Simon didn't do all that he could, but he could have gone back to see if he could at least find Joe's body. Now, Joe says he would have done the same thing if their positions were switched. Many people have forgiven Simon thanks to this book, but many still believe there is something more he could have done. At first I disagreed with Simon and saw him as a cruel person. Once I started connecting everything together, I am not sure I can judge him. He was not mentally nor physically strong enough to keep on going. He was in much need of water and food and
The author of “The Ravine” adds textual evidence to infer Vinny and Joe-Boy’s similarities and differences. Vinny and Joe-Boy are best friends. They are not the same though. They have many differences and similarities.
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
Vinny and Joe-Boy are both characters in a story called ‘’The Ravine’’. They are 15, boys, and best friends from Hawaii. They are going to a ravine to swim and jump off a precipice were a boy named Butchie died one week and a day ago. Vinny and Joe-Boy are in many ways similar, yet they are still very different.
Cross country runners spend weeks to months training for that one moment, the moment they will lean across the finish line. Crossing the finish line only lasts for only a split second, but the impact is significant. People often ask why, why spend so much time training for that one moment? Well for me it’s simple. The feeling I have when I cross that finish line is like no other I’ve ever had; it is a unique combination of pride, pain, relief, and an indescribable sense of accomplishment. After reading Into Thin Air, I realized how similar climbing a mountain actually is to running a race. Climbers, just like runners, spend months training for those few glorious minutes on top.
“What?” Sun-Jo was appalled at the fact that Peak had decided not to conquer the summit of Mount Everest. How could he give up such a glorifying moment? Peak would have been the youngest boy to ever reach the summit, however, he realized he didn’t want the fame. Sun-Jo was only a few days older than him, and if Sun-Jo reached the summit and Peak did not, he would be the youngest person to summit Everest. Also, Sun-Jo’s family was living on the other side of the mountain and he needed to get to the other side so that he could reconnect with his family. Since Peak avoided his mother’s advice to think of himself and only himself, he did not make it to the top. Many other characters, unlike Peak, were selfish and although it helped some, others were less fortunate.
Throughout the novel, the protagonist encounters many difficulties when trying to reach his goal of climbing Mount Everest. He encounters problems, from illnesses to deaths but most affectively the catastrophic weather. When Krakauer’s 5 friends die, including Rob Hall, Krakauer takes responsibility of the other climbers and helps them get through the tough weather safely. When they arrived to the base camps, many of the climbers gave up but Krakauer kept trying, he was motivated by Halls death to reach the top of Mount Everest. Krakauer finds ways to get around
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
Throughout their journey, the empathetic boys strengthen their bond. Gordy and Chris, who are shown to have a stronger bond, reveal their own insecurities. The close-up shots of these individuals display the emotion of the boys as they are forced to mature through their individual lives at home, as well as fending for themselves out in the unknown. When shown the dolly shot of the train fast-approaching the boys, we can understand that the journey is not about the discovery of the dead body, but a discovery of friendship and the challenge of trial. The strength of their bond is seen by the use of self-sacrifice, and by the final line, of which Gordy types on his computer, ‘I never had any friends like I did when I was 12… Jesus, does anyone?’ This can leave any audience reminiscing, and closes a tale that any audience can relate to: most people have experienced this type of friendship at some point in their lives, a memory this movie helps all viewers
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.
Ever since people knew it was possible to reach the summits of Mount Everest, about 4,000 people have attempted to climb it and one in four people have died from doing so. “Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed” (Krakauer 13). The very first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest was in 1953, and ever since then about seven percent out of every 4,000 people that attempted have died. In the novel, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, he documents his journey to the summit of Mount Everest.
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.
However the conflict arises when James is reluctant to leave and is determined to stay with “the only brothers he has left”, in order to defend a strategic bridge who’s defense is vital in determining the immediate tide of the war. Again, Captain Miller, after already loosing two of his men, decides that Ryan and his fellow soldiers cannot hold the point on their own, and that he and his men will aid the already weakened defenders in hopes of not only defending the bridge from the Germans, but also to save Private Ryan from what would other-wise be his inevitable death.
What Shakespeare might call the fatal flaw of Fischer’s expedition seemed to be a collective lack of humility amongst his team, stemming of course from the top with Fischer himself, the “face” of the organization. Fischer was an ambitious man who was desperate to earn the respect of his peers, and came across as nothing short of overconfident when he was quoted in Krakauer's Into Thin Air as saying, "Experience is overrated. […] We've got the big E figured out, we've got it totally wired. […] (W)e've built a yellow brick road to the summit." (pp. 85-86) Even Fischer's experienced guide, Anatoli Boukreev, was not immune from pride, opting to make the climb without the use of supplemental oxygen, a decision that was not only completely unnecessary, but arguably ended up costing the lives of members of his team at the summit. Indeed, as Krakauer noted, there was a palpable lack of a team dynamic, a result of the Attraction-Selection-Attrition Theory; the team felt more like a bunch of individuals, all "in it for himself or herself." (Krakauer, p. 213) In a life or death situation, having a strong team dynamic is more important than ever. But Fischer was more interested in the parts, than the whole. As part of Fischer's ambition, he had made an effort to recruit high-profile clients, including a New York socialite who wrote for Allure magazine, and Krakauer himself, who could lend the expedition some heavy publicity, but brought very little by way of experience when it came to summiting a mountain as extreme as Everest.
...to wherever they were and make sure they were treated. He also ignores his own disease and ill condition to insure the clients have a shot at the summit. This may be viewed as foolishness but this type of self-sacrifice is something rare and admirable. In conclusion, both men have a usual connection to climbing.
In June 1985, British mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates ventured the unclimbed western face of Siula Grande, a 21,000 ft. high peak that is located in the Peruvian Andes. Simpson and Yates were both aware that what they are aspiring is nearly impossible because if something gone wrong it can be serious, which may lead to death, and there is no rescue available; in addition, mountain climbers before them who attempted to reach the mountain’s summit never achieved this goal. However, this didn’t stop them from climbing the west face of Siula Grande. They want to climb the mountain mainly because “it was just brilliant fun.” (2009). When people are aware that they are getting their selves in a detrimental situation, they still continue to do what they want to do. In my opinion, I believe people behave this way because they just want to try something extraordinary or they want to prove something to someone; but in Psychology, people behave this way because of motivation. Motivation is defined as the process “that makes a person move toward a goal.” (SparkNotes Editors, 2005); a motivation can be intrinsic, extrinsic, or both. Intrinsic motivation is a type of motivation which causes an individual to act or engage in activities to enhance their self-concept, while extrinsic motivation is a type of motivation that causes an individual to act in such a way for external awards. In Simpson’s and Yates’ case, they are both experiencing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; despite of getting their selves in danger, they still yearn to reach the mountain’s summit because of interest, enjoyment, and rewards.