Ascent into hell
Book review: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Originally published in Creative Loafing in 1997. I am reprinting some of my early writing here, which is no longer available online.
A few months ago, one of alpining’s greatest tragedies occurred when a dozen climbers died attempting to ascend Mt. Everest, with eight of them dying during one day — May 10, 1996. Jon Krakauer, a contributing writer for Outside magazine, was on the mountain when those people died. And it seems he still hasn’t recovered from the incident. “I wish I’d never heard of Everest,” he told interviewers from ABC’s television show “Turning Point” the next year. “I wish I hadn’t gone. It was a huge mistake,” he said. “It will affect me the rest of my life.”
Into Thin Air is Krakauer’s riveting account of his own painstaking ascent of Everest and the deadly events that unfolded on “the roof of the world” in 1996. His brilliant description of this territory alternately awes and chills the reader:
“The ink-black wedge of the summit pyramid stood out in stark relief, towering over the surrounding ridges. Thrust high into the jet-stream, the mountain ripped a visible gash in the 120-knot hurricane, sending forth a plume of ice crystals that trailed to the east like a…
