Into Thin Air

I recently finished reading Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer's incredible description of his summit attempt on Mount Everest during what became the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster. The narrative describes Krakauer's experience during the heyday of commercial mountaineering guide services. As a journalist writing for Outside magazine, Krakauer described what was hoped to be a routine climb along Mount Everest's South Col summit route used by Hillary and Norgay during their record-setting first summit in 1953, now the standard route.

During summit day, slow progress by inexperienced climbers and judgment errors by guides set the stage for tragedy when a storm quickly materialized along the southern ridge. Blowing 40 knots and producing incredible wind chills, many tardy climbers including the leader of Krakauer's expedition were trapped high on the upper mountain. By this time, Krakauer himself had nearly made it to high camp in the col and narrowly escaped incredible amounts of exposure in the high winds. Lack of visibility thwarted rescue attempts, and by the next day eight members from two expeditions had perished while others suffered extreme frost bite.

An expedition filming the IMAX documentary Everest offered assistance and supplies such as additional bottled oxygen in addition to arranging a helicopter evacuation of two frost bitten climbers. This film hauntingly documents their perspective of the disaster.

One of the most striking components of this story is how altitude clouded the judgments of the people involved. Several times, someone attempting to adjust their oxygen regulators would get it wrong and either turn off the flow of O2 entirely or drain the tank in minutes. Tragically, one of the guides who had reached high camp during the storm incorrectly stated that all of the oxygen bottles were empty when, in fact, at least two were not. Krakauer speculates this incorrect information changed the plans of Rob Hall, the lead climber, who elected to stay with a client near Hillary Step, just below the summit, where both he and his client perished.

The 1996 Everest Disaster demonstrates the consequences of hubris high on a mountain. One of the guides from an American expedition wasn't climbing with oxygen. While this might be a personal challenge to overcome at other times, doing so while employed to take care of others is exceedingly dangerous. When disaster struck, he was unable to assist; he couldn't even wait around with a distressed climber, for the lack of oxygen slows human metabolism such that the only substantial source of internal heat is produced from muscles as they are operating. Additionally, the many climbers from multiple commercial expeditions created bottlenecks that delayed summit times and increased exposure to weather-related hazards; if the storm had struck even an hour later, many more people are likely to have made it to [limited] shelter in the South Col. Finally, turn around times were ignored at great peril.

One of the other lessons here is no climb is guaranteed, and achieving the summit is only the half-way point. Mountaineering is inherently quite dangerous, particularly above 8000m where oxygen levels are so low that it's virtually impossible to carry someone. Anyone considering undertaking such a venture should come to terms with the fact that rescue is nearly impossible; doubts in one's abilities, fitness levels, and weather conditions should be headed. Underscoring this point, most of the climbing along the upper mountain is done without ropes linking the climbers; falls are so perilous on the steep slopes that doing so would simply increase the scope of one person's tragedy.