Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

This is an amazing story of an unimaginable nightmare that happened on Mt Everest. Even though I have no mountaineering experience or even much interest, I read this book in just a few days. The story is haunting and Krakauer does an amazing job retelling what happened on that fateful expedition.

Jon Krakauer is a great storyteller. I literally could not put this book down, reading it cover to cover in one day. Most books can't hold my attention for more than 50-60 pages at a time, but I was simply so engrossed in this story and the vivid imagery Krakauer painted with his words that I simply couldn't stop reading it.

The reader gets a palpable sense of what the expedition teams members suffered through. The extreme miseries of cold, exhaustion, and oxygen deprivation. The book consistently portrays the dangers of the low oxygen environment. The worst of these are pulmonary and cerebral edema, which can both cause death unless the climber is brought to a lower altitude. But probably the most deadly effects of the thin air is hypoxia, the under-saturation of oxygen in the blood. Although not directly life-threatening, it can cause confusion, disorientation, and hallucinations. In an already dangerous environment, having less the full faculties is a deadly hindrance. Krakauer recounts many incidents where team members, due to hypoxia, failed to put on their harnesses correctly, neglected to put on their gloves to protect their hands from the below freezing temperatures, or gave team members incorrect information in their confused state that could have proven deadly.

Also palpable is the overwhelming drive and determination to reach the summit that ultimately cost some their lives. And the agonizing, heart-breaking dilemma that comes when deciding when a team member can't go on and can't be rescued. When do you leave them for dead? But there are moments of inspiration even in those stories. Take Beck Weathers, a forty-nine year old Texan left for dead, not once but twice. His will to live defied all odds. After being left buried overnight in the snow, Weathers was found barely alive by teammates the next day. They determined he was beyond saving and left him to let nature take it's course. But hours later, he roused himself up and managed to walk back to camp. Even then, his condition was so poor he was not expected to live and was left back at camp in favor of getting more viable members down the mountain. Defying the odds, he descended to base camp with the aid of another expedition crew and was flown back to a hospital in Kathmandu.

Then comes the ultimate question, how can an expedition led by an experienced and talented climbing guide like Rob Hall go so wrong? In a nutshell, Hall made an exception to his own guidelines in an apparent sympathetic attempt to see one team member make the summit after failing to do so the year before. It left the expedition to descend far later than Hall knew they should have. It cost eight people their lives, including Hall himself.

In reading this book, you really get a sense of who all the team members are. Krakauer writes with great clarity and empathy. He has a very readable narrative style. This is one book I'll be recommending often.

This truly is a beautiful book, with a lot of good pictures, and is a good read for anyone who is in love with the tallest mountain in the world.

I found this book extremely intriguing it keeps on the edge all through it. The author in the end addresses some of what has been seen by others as weak points. I think this is the best adventure book I have read.

I loved this book and finished it in about 2 days. I'm now watching the Discovery series on Everest also. Krakauer is a superb writer with a gift for blending drama, narrative and fact-telling in a stylish manner. [...]
Highly recommended.