Fallen Giants and Into Thin Air have both displayed a common theme – the “golden age” of Himalaya mountaineering is dead. The counterculture movements of the 1960s influenced not just the western views on the Himalaya region but have extended up to that mountaineering itself. A new generation of climbers is shaking things up and making the older generations raise eyebrows. So this is the beginning of the age of extremes.

Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the new age of mountaineering is the death of the brotherhood of the rope”. The feeling of loyalty among expedition members has been ebbing and now as it is presented in Fallen Giants, it is literally every man for himself. Apart from the decline of a group mentality the “brotherhood” is dying for a different reason it is no longer an exclusively elite male pursuit there are now women who are climbing and making a splash in the mountaineering world. There are not just women being included on climbing excursions but entirely women expeditions. Previously where couples would be separated for months they are now climbing together. Quite a change from the previous decades where women climbers, although not unheard of, are hardly the frontrunners on expeditions.

Also there is the emergence of mountain tourism. There are trekkers being guided through the far hard to reach passes of the Himalaya as a means of vacation. This is further taking out the exclusivity of who would be stomping through the rafters of the world.

The radicle changes in attitude towards the greater ranges as well as climbing as a whole are not just limiting until after the end of the “Golden Age” in the nineteen-sixties and seventies. As the eighties and nineties come on there is an enterprising spirit and Everest, like so many things in the contemporary world, is seen as a resource to be exploited.

Into Thin Air had been one of my favorite books in high school, those so many years ago (probably because up to that point in time the most exciting thing that we ever read in my school was Of Mice and Men – which is about as interesting as a foam insulation installment manual). I still enjoy the work but time and the context of this class have really called a few things to my attention about it.

In the introduction, Jon Krakauer proposes to tell what happened in a well informed and removed view. I do not think that this was very well executed. In the middle of the book he goes on a five page tangent about how horrible of a person and climber that Sandy Hill Pittman is. I do not think that she could have been that bad considering that this was her final stretch in climbing the seven summits, and he himself stated that she had been introduced to climbing by her father years ago. I do not think that she was nearly as incompetent as she is painted out to be.

Krakauer’s critical evaluation of all of the climbers was also bothersome. Could he really have known their weakness and attributes as well as the guides who were supposed to help? Yasuko Namba’s climbing ability was criticized more frequently than that of Pittman’s but again Namba’s abilities could not have been that terrible because she had summited six of the seven summits before coming to Everest.

Krakauer also criticize everything from the guides, the other expeditions, and is disgusted by the commercialization of Everest and how people can “buy their way to the summit” (never mind that he is contributing to the pollution and commercialization himself being on one of the guided ascents). I do not think that he gives people enough credit, he makes it seem like he alone is worthy to ascend the mountain.