Well this sure felt academic following last week’s read, huh? I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of Jon Krakauer’s form in Into Thin Air, but it was a page turner. Sherry Ortner’s work could appear bland, even *gasp* scientific compared to Krakauer’s rant/trip report. This is where a realization struck me. Ortner’s style and presentation reminded me of Jane Goodall’s writing in In the Shadow of Man, her 1971 book about her time spent with the chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, but lacked the personal anecdotes and reflections of Goodall. This got me thinking a little (dangerous, I know). These two women are both pillars within their respective fields, dominant authorities and visionaries. Their fields differ obviously, but their honest, meticulous, scientific approach is common. In the same way that Goodall’s work brought astonishing realizations of chimpanzee behavior, Ortner shines light on a widely misunderstood mountain culture. Of course, I make this comparison not to belittle the Sherpa culture or people, but to illuminate the quality and esteem of Ortner’s anthropological study of them. In a matter of decades, she developed a more complete, concise, and comprehensive picture of Sherpa culture than centuries of anthropologists, economists, historians, and the remaining gaggle of academia has managed to construct of itself. For my own taste, this somewhat stripped down, dry writing is just peaches. I enjoyed Ortner’s descriptions of Sherpa life and appreciated her thoughtful suggestions about the impacts and patterns of monetization and commercialization of the Sherpa society.