Reading Response – Week 11

Bryant Lymburn

For this week’s reading the assignment of Into Thin Air is a text that follows Jon Krakauer’s account of his expedition to climb Mount Everest and the events that occurred during that season. Jon Krakauer is a renowned climber in the United States and has summitted many technical peaks in the North American continent. Jon is a journalist and writer the works extensively in the climbing community. Outside Magazine contacted Jon to write an article on the commercialization occurring on Mount Everest. Jon petitioned that if he were to travel that far and reach the base camp of Everest he might as well get the opportunity to climb the mountain. The magazine agreed to these terms and arranged Jon to climb with the guide team organized through Rob Hall. Originally Jon planned to only climb the lower slopes of the mountain and not initially attempt to reach the summit.

The expedition would set out for Everest in the summer 1996 with a team that was to consist of 8 climbers. Most of the people in Hall’s group were people with little to no climbing experience, Jon was one of the clients in the group that possessed the most however. Even with this inexperience Hall was not deterred from getting his clients to the top of the peak because has been successful in the past. After the acclimatization period was done the team would make a summit attempt for May 10th. Although weather was pristine at the beginning of the day it took a turn for the worst towards the evening of the 10th. The climbing that day was plagued by poor communication and the leader’s inability to stick to pre-planned return times even if they did not reach the summit. This caused for the schedule to be pushed and exposed climbers to the death zone longer than is recommended. Some of whom was without the aid of supplemental oxygen were exposed to for great lengths. After these delays a total of 4 people did not make it down the mountain that day, making it one of the worst modern disasters in recent history.

Criticisms and questions often arise when incidents like this happen, but answers are not always easy to come by. The first question is whether guiding inexperienced clients at such altitude is appropriate. There are two sides to this argument one is that they should continue and others say that it should not. Nepal and the Chinese governments welcome the added income they receive when selling passes to climb the summit. On the other hand, added climbers add to the degradation of the mountain and cause ‘traffic jams’ on the mountain. Inexperienced climbers often cannot climb at the pace necessary causing to foul up other behind them since the route is limited by the single track roped by the Sherpas. Another criticism arises as to why the members on the mountain did not give extra effort to help the others in need around them. In my opinion they are not at fault for not putting forth this extra effort. In their position they are fighting to hold onto their own lives at the same time. Being exhausted from the climb any extra effort would put even more individuals in danger than those number who were originally present. Everyone whom puts themselves in these positions without prior knowledge or experience are completely at fault and responsible for their actions and it cannot be blamed on others for not surviving.