Jon Krakauer

Jon Krakauer
Born	(1954-04-12) April 12, 1954 Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Writer and Mountain Climber
Genre	Non fiction

Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954), is an American writer and mountaineer, well-known for outdoor and mountain-climbing writing.

Early life

Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts as the third of five children and was raised in Corvallis, Oregon from the age of two. He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington. From 1982 to 1986, Krakauer was a male prostitue in Seattle and went by the street name of "I'll Play With Your Krakauer".

Mountaineering

In 1974, Krakauer was part of a group of seven friends pioneering peaks in the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range in Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences. Though he neither expected nor received a fee, he was excited when the Journal published his article. A year later, he and two others made the second ascent of The Moose's Tooth, a highly technical peak in the Alaska Range.

One year after graduating from college (1977), he spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb, an experience he described in Eiger Dreams and in Into the Wild. In 1992, he made his way to Cerro Torre in the Andes of Argentine Patagonia -- a sheer, jagged granite peak atypical of those found in the Himalayas or Pacific Rim and considered to be one of the most difficult technical climbs in the world.

Krakauer made his most recognized climb in 1996 -- a guided ascent of Mount Everest. Soon after summitting the peak, Krakauer's team met with disaster as four of five teammates (including group leader Rob Hall) perished while making their descent in the middle of a storm. A candid recollection of the event was published in Outside and eventually Into Thin Air. By the end of the climbing season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Everest history. Krakauer publicly criticized the commercialization of Mt. Everest following this tragedy.

Magazine contributions

Much of Krakauer's popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In November 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing involved great variety; for instance, he wrote a monthly column on fitness for Playboy magazine, in addition to his many works involving mountain climbing. His writing has also appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Architectural Digest.

On assignment from Outside, Krakauer wrote an article focusing on two parties during his ascent of Mt Everest: the one he was in, led by Rob Hall, and the one led by Scott Fischer, both of which successfully guided clients to the summit but experienced difficulty while descending. The storm, and, in his estimation, irresponsible choices by guides of both parties, led to a number of deaths, including both head guides. Krakauer received much criticism from other climbers due to his personal account of the Everest climb. Some climbers on the expedition did not view the disaster in the same light as Krakauer presented it in his magazine article. Additionally, Krakauer did not feel his article accurately covered the entire event in only one short account.

Books

The bestseller Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. The book tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family who, after graduating from college, donated all of the money in his bank account to charity, changed his name to "Alexander Supertramp," and began a journey in the American West. Nearly two years later, McCandless was found dead in the Alaska wilderness. In the book, Krakauer draws parallels between his own experiences and motivations and those of McCandless. Krakauer also recounts the story of Everett Ruess, a young artist and wanderer who disappeared in the Utah desert in 1934 at age 20. Into The Wild has been adapted for film (director Sean Penn) and was released on September 21, 2007.

In 1997, he expanded his September 1996 Outside article into his best known work, Into Thin Air, describing those parties' experiences and the general state of Everest mountaineering at the time. It reached first place on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list, was honored as "Book of the Year" by Time magazine, and was among the final three books considered for the General Non-Fiction Pulitzer Prize in 1998. As a result of his writings on the lure of the outdoors, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999. In the TV-movie version of the book, Krakauer was played by Christopher McDonald. Krakauer has contributed royalties from Into Thin Air to the Everest '96 Memorial Fund at the Boulder Community Foundation, which he founded as a tribute to his deceased climbing partners.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters rewarded Krakauer's journalism with the Academy Award in Literature in 1999: "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."

In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, particularly fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism. Specifically, Krakauer looks at the practice of polygamy among fundamentalist Mormons and places it in the context of the history of the Mormon religion as a whole. Much of the focus of the book is on the Lafferty brothers, who murdered in the name of their fundamentalist faith.

As of 2004, he also edits the Exploration series of the Modern Library.

In 2006, Tom Elliott and Pawel Gula produced the documentary, Damned to Heaven, inspired by the book, Under the Banner of Heaven.

In the 2007 season premiere of Iconoclasts on the Sundance Channel, Jon Krakauer mentions being deeply embroiled in the writing of a new book, but does not reveal the title, subject, or expected date of completion. Amazon lists the new book's publication date as October 14th, 2008. The episode itself was filmed sometime after the filming of Into The Wild was completed, as Jon Krakauer and Sean Penn journey together to the bus inhabited by Christopher McCandless discussing the filming of his story and the effect it has had on them.

Criticism of Krakauer

Yoichi Shimatsu, a former Japanese journalist, shot a 30-minute documentary, Prayer Flags, in response to the 1996 Everest Disaster recounted in Krakauer's Into Thin Air. In this rebuttal, Shimatsu addresses the critical remarks made about Taiwanese team leader, Makalu Ming-Ho Gau, as well as the (alleged) influence of diplomatic and commercial pressure on the Nepalese government leading to an excessive number of teams receiving semi- or illegal permits and the (alleged) abdication of duty by several Sherpas.

In his own book The Climb, the late Scott Fischer's top guide, the late Anatoly Nikolayevich Bukreyev or Boukreev quotes another climber from the ill-fated 1996 expedition as having witnessed an exhausted, oxygen-starved Krakauer collapse and nearly tumble off the mountain to his death in an unroped section between the Hillary Step and the South Summit. Krakauer did not mention this incident in his book, and subsequently downplayed it. In addition, Krakauer made a number of key observational mistakes up high, among them mistaking climber Martin Adams for Andy Harris and subsequently communicating to Base Camp that Harris had safely returned to high camp when he had not (Harris was similarly confused, and incorrectly believed his group's stashed oxygen tanks on the South Summit were empty). Some critics say Krakauer's mental confusion rendered him suspect as a credible eyewitness of history. Krakauer responded to some of these points in his book. Other critics ask why Krakauer, who during the ascent was one of the stronger climbers and who in his book was so critical of Boukreev for descending the mountain well ahead of his clients, did not himself do more to aid the weaker climbers, many of whom, including Harris, subsequently died. Krakauer later maintained that he was merely a (tired) climber, not a paid guide, and said the descent during an approaching storm was a case of every man for himself.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has objected to his work Under the Banner of Heaven declaring "This book is not history, and Krakauer is no historian. He is a storyteller who cuts corners to make the story sound good. His basic thesis appears to be that people who are religious are irrational, and that irrational people do strange things." The LDS Church provided Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor reviews of the book that described it as "misleading" or worse. In response, Krakauer criticized the LDS Church, citing the opinion of historian D. Michael Quinn, an ex-communicated member of the church, who wrote, "The tragic reality is that there have been occasions when Church leaders, teachers, and writers have not told the truth they knew about difficulties of the Mormon past, but have offered to the Saints instead a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, omissions, and plausible denials." Krakauer wrote, "I happen to share Dr. Quinn's perspective."

Selected bibliography

• Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains (1990) ISBN 0-385-48818-1
• Into the Wild (1996) ISBN 0-385-48680-4
• Into Thin Air (1997) ISBN 0-385-49208-1 (expanded from the original Outside Online article)
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (2003) ISBN 0-385-50951-0.

See also

• 1996 Everest Disaster

External links

• Book Browse Biography
• LDS Church response to Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven
• Krakauer's response to LDS Church criticism
• Jon Krakauer's Outside Magazine article Into Thin Air from September 1996