Search - Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

A fairly gripping nonfiction account of tragic events during the author's ascent (with a group) up Everest. I enjoyed this, although I found it a bit self-indulgent, and the author has admitted since that he probably wrote it too soon after the event--he said he got some details wrong, and his story was affected/distorted by the emotional aftermath. But definitely worth the read. I liked Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven and Into the Wild as well.

Other books about climbing that I recommend more strongly than this one are "K2: A Woman's Place is on Top" and "Touching the Void". For other nonfiction books on extreme sports: "To the Edge" is a phenomenal book about ultramarathoning and "Winterdance" is a terrific account of the Iditarod sled race, and "Shadow Divers" is just a wonderful book about deep wreck diving.

This book is worth reading as an example of the best journalistic prose that we can get these days. Readable for those into travel and adventure books; interesting about the psychology of risk takers; inspiring tale of survival; cautionary story of guilt and recrimination and damage to reputation.

I picked this book up as a tonic for the hottest days of summer and found I had to put it aside several times as the story felt so immediate and personal. The desire to reach the fullness of the story was in direct opposition to a palpable sense of dread that grew with each chapterâ€"the writing is that good.

Biography * * * * Harrowing account of group of climbers who scaled Mt. Everest. Unforgettable.

Non-fiction about a failed trip to the summit of Mount Everest. It was hard to put down. The author does a good job of balancing history of Everest with the stories of the people who lived and died on the mountain. Great book!

This is an amazing story about groups of mountain climbers trying to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. I learned details about high-altitude climbing that I never knew before.

Into Thin Air is "a personal account of the Mt. Everest disaster" by Jon Krakauer (author of Into The Wild.) When I first saw the title and subtitle, I figured the climbers get blown off the mountain by a storm. Actually, it's about the challenges of climbing at high altitudes where the air is considerably thinner. About two-thirds of the book details the climb up Everest before the disaster. Even in best of conditions, it sounded like a pretty harrowing ordeal.

Standing roughly 29,000 feet, Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. Climbing it requires extraordinary skill, strength, and physiology. Many people have died climbing it. The higher you go up a mountain, the more climbers are prone to various forms of altitude sickness. Even if you do not get altitude sickness, with less oxygen to your brain, a person's mental and phsyical capacity is reduced accordingly, making one susceptable to poor judgment, cold, and injuries.

Acclimatization is an important process while climbing at high altitudes. While ascenting, climbers should rest periodically to get used to the thinning air. In the case of Everest, there are four camps above the Base Camp (17,600 ft). The acclimatization process on Everest consists of multiple climbs to each of those camps and back, each time ascending to the higher camp. Even then, staying an extended period of time above a certain height without oxygen will kill your brain cells. When making the actual summit attempt, perhaps couple of nights are spent at the lower camps while only one night is spent at the higher camps. On summit day, a climber will typically leave Camp Four just past midnight, with hopes of making it to summit by 1 or 2 pm at latest, giving them enough time for the decent back to camp before dark. That's a very long day of climbing - 15 hours or more - under the most difficult of conditions. Perhaps even after some sleepless nights in the camps below.

Imagine the challenges of climbing Everest, and then add to that a hurricane like blizzard. Some of the climbers get stuck in it on their descent from the summit. Some make it, some don't. From the very beginning, Krakauer does a great job of describing the various climbers who get involved in the disaster. It was interesting to read about the individuals' background, differences, and their performance on the mountain. In the end, it was not necessarily the strongest who survive. Sometimes luck or fate play a roll. Most times though, it's human factor. A simple mistake can lead to huge disasters, or a heroic deed saves lives.

Perhaps the one character who surprised me the most is of one who was left for dead - twice! This person was presumed dead and left overnight in a storm with no shelter in sub-freezing temperatures. Somehow the next day he regained enough strength and lucidity to find his way back to Camp Four. After other climbers helped him get comfortable, they yet again figured he would die and left him unattended during another stormy night where he suffered some more. Despite serious injuries from frostbite, he survived.


Climbing Everest crossed my mind only once several years ago when a friend told me about his desire to climb to the Everest Base Camp. By the sound of it, the Base Camp is fairly attainable (as long as you can cough up the expensive fees) so I thought... hmm. Few seconds later though, I figured I'd probably die and hadn't given it a second thought since. However, next time I'm in the mountains snowboarding and feeling cold, or struggling up some difficult hike, I hope I will remember the adversity faced by the climbers described in the book and gain strength from it.

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One of the best books I've ever read - exciting and thought-provoking, and extremely well-written.

Exciting and a quick read. Interesting even for a non-climber.

I couldn't put this book down. Excellent read!

Amazing tale of survival and death in the wilderness by one of the greatest journalists around.

Wonderful account a disasterous climb of Everest.

An absolutely unforgettable account of a ascent on Mount Everest that ended in disaster. You will remember this story until the day you die.

I love this amazing story. I recieved it as a gift, took a chance and loved it - it made me want to learn more about Mt. Everest and so much of the world I had never thought of before. I can not rave enough about this true adventure of incredible ability of human beings.

This was an interesting account of Everest 1996, although from my own personal observation, I found The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev to have a more "factual" feel to it. This book is well written and a good read, but it leaves one wondering how much the authors emotions clouded his interpretation of those days. This review is in no way intended to be judgemental as I can't even imagine what any of the climbers endured.

Excellent read! I could not put it down! Incredible what can happen above 30k feet!