What a disaster. I enjoyed the first three chapters and the appendix of the book because they were so detailed. I think this is the first book we have read that went into that much depth about the history and geography of the mountain and the planning before the expedition in one book. Though it quickly started to be clear that this expedition was going to be a disaster. They could not find the old route, people kept changing plans for themselves, they worried about running out of gas and matches, birds attacked mattresses, they were spilling tea on their sleeping bags, and having their tent fly away. Then their was the storm, at this point I knew they were never going to reach the summit.

One aspect of this expedition that stuck out for me was how the crew did not know each other very well. And I guess we have seen this before, were teams were chosen by organizations, but it became more apparent to me after watching the film Meru. Later in the book Bell writes, “We entered the mountains as strangers, but we left as brothers” (pg. 137). They of course became brothers when things starting going wrong, especially with Art. I also got the sense people’s egos got in the way in this book. Plans kept changing and their was not really a leader in the expedition. There was Houston, but I could not make clear of his role in the book. I am sure in the real expedition he had a major role, I do not know though. People kept going off and doing their own thing too. It seemed like the expedition started very organized in the beginning, but quickly became unorganized. Plans change of course, but other expeditions we have read about had more strategies than plans. They knew what could happen at certain points and could quickly make a decision or rely on the leader to make a decision to get around it. This expedition was prepared, but not as a team. Maybe that is why Houston and Bates focused a lot of the book on the preparations, and chose to put in such a dense appendix. It just goes to show how something can go wrong so quickly. All the plans go out the window and you have to rely on a team. But their was never a team.

When the storm came in I felt like they kind of ignored it for a bit as well. It is hard to get a sense of the real thing being such a short story in the book, but even when they discussed it on the radio they continued to climb. They kept pushing the line of risk until something really bad happened with Art, then they went down. Then they had to battle the storm on the descent. It was really the summit or death. It made a great story, like we talked about a few weeks ago, how dramatic climbs like this do make good stories, but things went wrong very quick. I was drawn more to the appendix than the story actually. I have been always wondering the hell these people take that make so many porters necessary, and now I know. Their was lots of heavy equipment in the 50’s I guess; lots of heavy wool and 7 pound sleeping bags, wow. The food breakdown was really interesting as well, and how they had certain meals for each altitude. Great section of the book!