DELHI

BOOK REVIEW
INTO
THIN AIR
The book that exposed Mount Everest
By Nimish Dubey
For most people, ascending Mount
Everest, the tallest mountain on earth,
remains the ultimate travel fantasy. For
years, Everest had been most travellers’
holy grail, notwithstanding the risks
involved (many people died in their
attempts to conquer the peak). A major
accident in May 1996 that claimed the
lives of eight climbers did shock many but
was initially considered part of the hazard
of climbing. Until Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin
Air hit the stands later that year.By far the
highest selling book on mountaineering,
Into Thin Air blew the top off the
mountaineering guide business, showing
how trained mountaineers acted as
“guides” to take totally inexperienced
people on to the top of the world. For a
massive fee, of course.
The problem with this arrangement was
that the guides sometimes actually put
money before safety in an attempt to
ensure that more “clients” reached the
peak. And that is exactly what happened
on May 10, 1996, when a number of
climbing teams were trying to ascend
Everest on the same day. Two of these
were headed by a couple of the most
experienced moutaineers in the world,
Scott Fischer and Rob Hall. Krakauer
himself was part of one of those teams,
covering the climb for Outside magazine.
As schedules clashed, teams chose to
ignore warnings about the weather,
focussing instead on getting to the peak
and getting photographed there. Little
did they know many would not return. A
fierce storm hit Everest even as the teams
were on their way down and as most
of the climbers were not experienced,
panic set in. Fischer and Hall tried to get
a grip on matters but were helpless in a
zone where there was nothing one could
against the fury of nature, in conditions of
near zero visibility, sub zero temperatures
and winds that literally blew people off
the mountain. By the time things cleared,
there were no fewer than eight climbers
dead and one missing. Among the dead
were Fischer and Hall – team leaders who
had paid the ultimate price for putting
their clients’ interests above safety.
All this in itself would have been enough
to make a gripping work, but Krakauer
makes it even better with his narrative
skills. One of the problems with books
about mountains has been the fact that
they have been written by people who
are better at wielding ice axes than
pens. The prose has inevitably suffered
as a consequence – even Sir Edmund
Hillary’s account of conquering Everest
for the first time is a relatively tame read,
exciting only for the event it covers rather
than the narration. Krakauer, however,
is a different kettle of fish, being a
thoroughbred journalist in his own right.
And it shows. You actually feel the chill
seep into your veins as he describes
conditions on the mountain and I defy you
to stop reading his account of when the
storm hits the stranded mountaineers,
many of whom are shocked at seeing
their all expenses paid trip to Everest
turn into a funeral march. This is no
objective, cold analysis of a tragic event
by a bystander but a full blooded account
of what happened on one of the saddest
days in mountaineering history, by a
person who saw it all unfold in front of
his horrified eyes.
The last moments of Fischer and Hall,
the valiant attempts of the sherpas to
save people, the controversial efforts
of Anatoli Boukreev (whom Krakauer
criticised so much that he himself wrote
a book on the entire episode – yes, we
will review that one too), the miraculous
escape of Beck Weathers who had
actually been left for dead but managed
to make it back to safety somehow – all
form an integral of what I must confess
has got to be one of the travel classics of
our time, right alongside Apsley Cherry-
Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World.
Buy it. Read it. Everest will no longer have
the same appeal for you again.
It may be the highest mountain in the
world. It is also the world’s highest
graveyard.
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