I found this reading particularly interesting, I don’t know if it was Krakauer’s honest and a little bit condescending tone, or the story itself, but both made this Everest disaster an intriguing read, but also sort of frustrating in a couple ways. To begin with Krakauer gives the contents of the brochure to the reader, that states “We will not drag you up a mountain– you will have to work hard–but we guarantee to maximize the safety and success of your adventure”(Krakauer, pg. 37). Obviously this was interesting in the context of the disaster and everything that happened. This brings things back the “Shit Happens” article we read last week, that gives insight into the adventure sports companies and their promises to those who participate using their company. Personally, saying we guarantee, seems like an empty promise for a group climbing Everest, but then again, they say “to maximize the safety” just meaning they will do everything they can to up the safety, but then to follow it up with “and success” sort of offsets the previous guarantee. To guarantee to maximize both, does not always seem to go hand in hand, especially in this situation. Krakauer writes in the first couple pages of his book “Why did veteran Himalayan guides keep moving upward, ushering a gaggle of relatively inexperienced amateurs… into an apparent death trap?” (Krakauer, pg. 8). This begins the questioning of the whole book, and the whole journey, and sets the precedence for what we are about to read, and help us question the guarantees that the guiding company made, for the sake of the summit.

Throughout the book, Krakauer refers to the climbers, whether in his group, or any climbing expedition, sort of as amateurs, portrays them as there for the wrong reasons sometimes, and his original job was going to be just to write about the commodification of the mountain, so his comments from others give into this same sort of theme, thus giving Krakauer the condescending tone. In the end of the book he writes on multiple letters he received or messages posted, and one being from a South African discussion forum, where one man writes “So I believe that even the Sherpas are to blame for the tragedy of 1996 on ‘Sagarmatha.’ I have no regrets of not going back, for I know the people of the area are doomed, and so are those rich, arrogant outsiders who feel they can conquer the world” (Krakauer, pg. 299). Is this is the perceived mindset of climbers? Do whatever it takes to get to the top, because they can conquer the world? With how many people have climbed Everest, and the possible commodification of Everest, we can see how it looks conquerable, but even with travelled ground, nature is more powerful, and intelligence on when to turn around, and what to do next is necessary.

Personally, I would be like Charlotte Fox in this situation. She says “My eyes were frozen. I didn’t see how we were going to get out of it alive. The cold was so painful, I didn’t think I could endure it anymore. I just curled up in a ball and hoped death would come quickly” (Krakauer, pg. 216). Not to be the pessimist, but cold would be enough for me to resist climbing a mountain and after reading the mountaineering stories we have, I don’t think I could endure the cold either, especially during a storm.