1996 was the
single deadliest year in the history of Mount Everest expeditions. Jon
Krakauer’s Into Thin Air chronicles
the events leading up to the May 10, 1996 summit attempt where 8 people lost
their lives and many others were in danger of losing theirs as well.
I know this
is a famous book, perhaps one of the most widely read from the whole National
Geographic Adventure list, but I had a hard time getting into it. Something
about me just automatically goes cold when I find out that one of these
adventure books is written by a journalist, whose main purpose of going on
their adventure was to write about it. It’s difficult for me to put these
adventurers into the same category as an Earnest Shackleton or a John Muir. That
being said, I do respect the theme of the story that Krakauer set out to write.
He was commissioned to write a magazine article about the commercialization of
Mount Everest and the associated risks and repercussions. Interestingly, this
month’s Issue of National Geographic Magazine had an excellent article on this
exact issue. The thrust of the argument is that commercialization of the mountain
has led to overcrowding, which is making the mountain more dangerous. More
climbers with less experience are crowding the slopes and as a result, many
have to sit around at dangerously high altitudes just waiting for their turn up
a rope. Krakauer spoke of this when he was trying to descend after his summit
and he had to wait around in the “death zone” while waiting for the group below
him to clear out. Sitting around for two hours in the death zone (above 26,000
feet) is dangerous for anyone, but more especially for an inexperienced
climber.
“Above the South Col, up in the Death Zone,
survival is to no small degree a race against the clock… Depending on each
person’s acclimatization and physiological makeup, we would still be able to
function above the South Col—but not well, and not for long. We would instantly
become more vulnerable to HAPE, HACE, hypothermia, impaired judgment, and
frostbite. The risk of dying would skyrocket.”
Another
problem associated with the overcrowding of Everest is the mass amounts of
waste produced by the hordes of climbers. This isn’t so much a problem at the
lower camps, where garbage can easily be carried off the mountain, but in the
higher camps there are piles of trash and human excrement that have been building
up for years. A related problem is what to do with all of the human bodies scattered
all over the mountain. The slopes of Everest are littered with the frozen
remains of hundreds of unlucky climbers. Many of them have fallen down cliffs
or crevasses and been lost, but some remain just off the beaten path. Krakauer
encountered two such corpses, one which had been on the slopes for three years,
and one higher up which had been there for 10-15 years.
“The first body had left me badly shaken for
several hours; the shock of encountering the second wore off almost
immediately. Few of the climbers trudging by had given either corpse more than
a passing glance. It was as if there were an unspoken agreement on the mountain
to pretend that these desiccated remains weren’t real—as if none of us dared to
acknowledge what was at stake here.”
In his book,
Krakauer presents a possible solution to the overcrowding of Mount Everest, and
after reading his story, I am inclined to agree with his proposal. He believes
that no one should be allowed to climb Everest with supplemental oxygen. For
one thing, this would reduce the amount of litter on the mountain, but it would
also cause people to prepare much more intensely for their summit attempts.
Perhaps people would take the mountain more seriously if they had to face it
head on without the crutch of an oxygen tank to support them. Or perhaps only
serious climbers would make the attempt. All I know is that it is an idea worth
considering.
All this
being said, the National Geographic article was quick to point out that
although more people flock to Everest each year, the overall mortality rate has
not gone up significantly in the past decade. More experienced guides and
better technology are making the mountain safer than it has ever been. For
instance, on May 19, 2012, 234 people reached the summit and only 4 climbers
died. Even so, I can’t help but think how bad it could be if something went
wrong on a day like that. If a freak change in the weather occurred, the death toll
could be catastrophic. Basically, my main takeaway from this book is that I’m
never going to try and climb Mount Everest.
“In the midst of all the postmortem
ratiocination, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that climbing mountains will
never be a safe, predictable, rule-bound enterprise. This is an activity that
idealizes risk taking; the sport’s most celebrated figures have always been
those who stick their necks out the farthest and manage to get away with it.
Climbers, as a species, are simply not distinguished by an excess of prudence.
And that holds especially true for Everest climbers: when presented with a
chance to reach the planet’s highest summit, history shows, people are
surprisingly quick to abandon good judgment.”
My rating: 6
out of 10
