Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

I came into this book a little prejudiced. The only other Krakauer book I'd read was Into the Wild, and it didn't leave me with a very favorable impression of the author. Though the story he told was told well, I was put off by how self-referential the book seemed; it was almost as if Krakauer was using Chris McCandless' story as a vehicle to talk about himself. 

This was a different book entirely. It was focused almost solely on Krakauer -- but for good reason. It was an account of his trip to Mt. Everest in the '90s on an expedition that claimed the lives of many climbers, both expert and novice. The author's voice here verges on humble. He enumerates his shortcomings and doesn't shy away from his mistakes. For example, for months after the accidents on the mountain, he had asserted that he'd seen one missing climber very near base camp. However, he realized later that he had been mistaken, that his memories of the day were clouded by exhaustion and altitude sickness. The error gave one family false hope and another unnecessary grief, and both reacted with anger. Krakauer includes their criticisms and owns up to his mistake. He even acknowledges the problematic nature of writing about and making money on the stories of others' deaths. In my mind, he comes off as balanced and fair in taking on these issues.

I was inspired to read the book after offering it as a book group option in a Wilderness Studies class I taught last year. The overarching question was, How does this book help us better understand the concept of wilderness. There is a lot in here that gets at that question. On the one hand, Everest is highly commercialized. Teams of guides chart tens of thousands of dollars to take climbers up the mountain, where their nearly every need is taken care of. All most climbers have to do is step where their guide tells them to step. They aren't making decisions or even carrying their own gear. At the same time, the storm described in the book demonstrated that nature remains firmly in charge on the mountain. Man is clearly a visitor here -- even if we forget it sometimes. No amount of training or preparation can eliminate the risks associated with climbing Everest. In that sense, I think it remains a wilderness, albeit one diminished by man's presence.