Into Thin Air

This article is about the non-fiction book. For the unrelated TV series produced by TVB, see Into Thin Air (TV series).

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
Author(s)	Jon Krakauer
Cover artist	Randy Rackliff
Country	United States
Language	English, Chinese, Japanese
Publisher	Villard Books
Publication date	1997
ISBN	9780385494786
OCLC Number	42967338
Followed by	Under the Banner of Heaven

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details the author's presence at Mount Everest during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a 'rogue storm'. The author's expedition was led by the famed guide Rob Hall, and there were other groups trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Rob Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants.

The book was adapted into a 1997 TV movie named Into Thin Air: Death on Everest starring Peter Horton as Scott Fischer and Christopher McDonald as Jon Krakauer. The book and the film both contain the same strong editorial viewpoint regarding the fundamental causes of the tragedy, although the film differs sharply from the book in details regarding responsibility.

Summary

In the book, Jon Krakauer tells events leading up to his eventual decision to participate in an Everest expedition in May 1996, despite having mostly given up mountain climbing years before. Initially, Krakauer, a journalist for adventure magazine Outside, stated that his intentions to climb Everest were purely professional. The original magazine story was to have Krakauer climb only to base camp, and report on the commercialization of the mountain. However, the idea of Everest reawakened his childhood desire for climbing the mountain. Krakauer asked his editor to put off the story for a year so that he could train for a climb to the summit. From there, the book chronologically moves between events that take place on the mountain and the unfolding tragedy which takes place during the push to the summit. In the book, Krakauer alleges that essential safety methods adopted over the years by experienced guides on Everest are sometimes compromised by the competition between rival guiding agencies to get their clients (some with little or no mountaineering experience) to the summit.

Controversy

Krakauer's recounting of certain aspects of the ill-fated climb has generated considerable criticism, both from the climb's participants and from renowned mountaineers such as Galen Rowell. Much of the disputed material centers on Krakauer's accounting of the actions of the Russian climber and guide, Anatoli Boukreev. An experienced, high-altitude climber and guide for Scott Fischer, Boukreev descended the summit prior to his clients, ostensibly out of concern for their safety and in preparation for potential rescue efforts. Boukreev later mounted repeated, solo rescue efforts, likely saving several lives. Krakauer questions Boukreev's judgment, however, for his decision to descend before clients, for not using supplementary oxygen, for his choices of gear on the mountain, and for his interactional style with clients. Boukreev provides a thorough rebuttal to these allegations in his book, The Climb.

Galen Rowell criticized Krakauer's account, citing numerous inconsistencies in his narrative while observing that Krakauer was sleeping in his tent while Boukreev was rescuing other climbers. Rowell argued that Boukreev's actions were nothing short of heroic, and his judgment prescient. “...[Boukreev] foresaw problems with clients nearing camp, noted five other guides on the peak [Everest], and positioned himself to be rested and hydrated enough to respond to an emergency. His heroism was not a fluke”.

See also

• The Climb – a book by Anatoli Boukreev with a critical analysis of the Adventure Consultants team and an alternative explanation to the events of those few days on Everest.

See also "A day to die for" by Graham Ratcliffe which puts forward evidence that detailed weather forecasts were being received by several groups well in advance of their teams' summit attempts. These forecasts highlighted clearly the oncoming strong storm that struck the mountain on 10th/11th may causing the tragedy. While most of Ratcliffe's comments are directed towards the two expedition leaders for ignoring the forecasts and continuing on the summit attempts and exposing clients to such high risk, he also makes clear that in his view Krakauer and many other's description of the storm as "sudden and unexpected" is wholly inaccurate. Further, Ratcliffe suggests that Krakauer, by not mentioning the forecasts, did not produce an accurate and adequately researched account.

External links

• Into Thin Air -- the original article by Jon Krakauer published in Outside magazine in September 1996
• The Outside Literary All-Stars: Jon Krakauer published in Outside magazine
• Interview with Peter Horton on the TV Movie
• Into Thin Air: Death on Everest at the Internet Movie Database
• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1109650 Radio interview with Jon Krakauer, May 1996.