Rating: 
Summary: Storm and Arrogance
Review: Jon Krakauer is unquestionably one of the finest writersinvolved in mountaineering literature. What makes his writing great isperhaps responsible for the only fault I can find in his retelling of this gripping tale.Krakauaer possesses no affect, no ego is discernable in his writing. He tells the story with the simple honesty of a child. The story unfolds unselfconsciously, and non judgmentally, and yet the reader finds his bile rising at the arrogance and stupidity of guides who claim to have "Big E wired" with a "yellow brick road" to the summit. Krakauer tells of these events and personalities without ever making a negative reference to any of the personalities involved. Krakauer's judgments are saved for himself. In that is the only weakness of the book. Krakauer is a highly skilled alpinist. He may have been one of the most skilled of the amateur climbers on the mountain during those faithful days. However, due to the manner in which Rob Hall treated clients Krakauer and the remainder of the clients are reduced to mindless drones completely dependent on the guides, Sherpas, and fixed ropes to complete the climb. Krakauer blames himself for allowing this to happen to him. He feels that he is in part responsible for the tragic deaths and injuries that occurred on the mountain. This seems to be a part of Krakauer's existential need to beat himself up because he and his father never achieved closure (see Into the Wild). As a reader and climbing guide I felt particularly frustrated with Krakauer's willingness to forgive the guides for what to me represented incredible arrogance and unbelievable irresponsibility. Once you have reduced your clients to mindless drones you are totally responsible for them and their safety. Unless you prepare your clients to make judgment calls in advance you can not expect them to suddenly begin making them in the midst of disaster. The major axiom of mountaineering that good luck consists of being prepared is most relevant here. In truth, the parties on Everest were totally unprepared for anything but the uneventful ascents of the past years. They were caught completely unprepared for the storm that hit with no contingency plans in place and no one ready to accept the responsibility for leadership in the event the main leader, Rob Hall, became incapacitated. This is a superb book. It is frustrating and horrifying to imagine that so little seems to have been learned from the tragic events of 1996. The degradation of the world's highest mountain for the ego gratification of yuppies and the financial aggrandizement of the guides and governments of Nepal and China is unforgivable. Perhaps this book will begin the process of awaking a reaction to stop the decline.
Rating:
Summary: arrogant men vs. angry mountain
Review: This gripping book has become a lightening rod for criticism, most of it directed at the author, Jon Krakauer. I am surprised to hear people call Krakauer a hypocrite because I thought he took more than his fair share of the blame. He talks of being haunted by his experiences and living with the guilt of allowing others to die. (If you remember, Klev Schoenberg tells Krakauer that he feels no such guilt.) For those who accuse Krakauer of cashing in on the experience, I would argue that the man is a journalist, a writer, and he has never portrayed himself as anything else. In the book he talks about the extra pressure his presence put on the other climbers (he quotes Beck Weathers' comments to Turning Point) and he is honest about his intention to write about the experience. I would say that the nature of Krakauer's profession requires him to cash in on his experience. Also, he has been accused of being too hard on Sandy Hill Pittman, but if anything, he treated her more gently than other journalists did in their coverage of the disaster. He insists that she did not want to be carried by the sherpa and says that he doesn't understand why she has taken the brunt of the media's criticism.
All of this is beside the point, of course. Into Thin Air will keep you up at night. It made me think long and hard about how I would handle myself in a survival situation. And it made me wake up shivering.
Rating:
Summary: Non-climbers should not be so critical of Krakauer
Review: I have read the book three times in the last three days. Having recently climbed Mt. Ranier and Mt. Kilimanjaro on tour, and trekked in Nepal, I felt a special affinity to the narrative. In response to the reviews I have read I have a few comments. Krakauer shouldn't be judged so harshly. No one can comprehend what he went through on the mountain nor has anyone any right to judge him. As a journalist and a human, Krakauer must have felt compelled to tell the story, to set the record. I wager he would have done the book even if there was no renumeration. If there is anyone that can criticize Krakauer, I would like to hear what Beidleman, Groom, Madsen and Hutchison have to say.
I am surprised there hasn't been more to say about Boukreev. Among his many unforgivable sins, I think the worst was telling Fischer at the summit he was going down with Martin Adams (page 203) and then proceed to Camp Four alone. If Adams hadn't see Groom and Namba above him and corrected his course (page 205), he too would have died. Can anyone answer these questions?
1. Hansen arrived at the summit at 4:00. Why is there no mention of anyone passing him on the way down, especially Krakauer?
2. Did Lhapka Chhiri and the three other Sherpas try to locate tha bodies of Weathers and Namba (page 247) before Lhapka and Ang Dorje left to get Hall at 9:30 (page 232)? Why didn't someone leave earlier for Hall and Hansen????
3. Which four Sherpas on Halls team summited? Ang Dorje and Ngawang Norbu must have been right behind Krakauer (page 179) and summited. On page 177 it states that Kami and Lhakpa Chhiri turned around at 11:30 with Hutchison, Kasischke and Taske. But on page 233 it states that the two Sherpas, Ang Dorje and Lhapka were "wasted from climbing to the summit and back just the day before." And then on page 212 Krakauer states that "the other four Sherpas [other than the two waiting in reserve at Camp Four who were poisened] on our team were too cold and debilated from having gone to the summit." (And yet there were actually 7 climbing Sherpas on the team). Did Lhakpa and Kami turn around with the three clients as instructed by Hall or summit? 4. If the person in the red suit on the South Col spotted by Adams wasn't Krakauer, who was it? Boukreev
Rating: 
Summary: Surviving The Green Zone
Review: It's official there are now two climbers with confirmed agents John Krakuer and Sandy Hill
Pittman. After reading this book and surviving the avalanche of Krakauer self-promotion I believe this book is less about 'journalism'
and much more about bank accounts and lecture
circuits. Good lord, not even climbing is safe
anymore!! The book, by the way, is a good read
anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Into Cold Cash
Review: First,this book is well-written and generally an interesting glimpse into the high risk game of mountaineering. However, I would have found it
more authoritative and credible if the author had
examined his own role in the events as
clearly as he seems to have done with other
participants.
A few of the problems I have with Krakauer's approach include the following. The author is
lightning quick to cast criticism on Ms. Pittman
and others for creating media distractions and the
consequent competitive atmosphere to reach the top.
Unfortunately,he fails to mention that all present
were well aware that Krakauer's presence ensured
an Outside magazine cover and book deal which
promised considerable more exposure than Pittman's
satelite phone and web sites could ever muster. Why doesn't he recognize the fact that he is most guilty of commercializing Everest last spring. A trend that he is most critical of in this book. Is the author having his cake and eating it too?
Perhaps most disturbing of all is the information
which is now emerging from survivor Beck Weathers,
a teammate of Mr. Krakauer's. Mr. Weathers spoke this week in his hometown of Dallas and filled in
a few more blanks in the story. Beck relates that after waiting all day on the Balcony,due to failing
eyesight,Krakauer was one of the first to reach him
after summiting. Beck says that he asked Krakauer
to help him down to camp and that he replied simply
"Hey,I'm no guide" and then descended without him.
Beck waited another 30 minutes ormore for the next
climbers, Mike Groom and Yasuko Namba, to arrive
who then helped him down to within a few hundred yards of camp when the storm broke over them, and
initiated their night out in the open.
This thirty minutes turned out to be critical.
While Krakauer is quick to criticize Fischer's
sherpa for short-ropping Pittman and thus slowing
the entire summit effort,he totally ignores this incident and even claimed that Beck told him to
go ahead without him. Also, because Groom had to
short-rope Beck down to the south col this also held up Yasuko which resulted in her exposure and consequent death. If Krakauer, who consistently characterizes himself as a "very experienced"
climber had met Becks' request would Beck and Ms.
Namba both had made it back to camp prior to the storm??
But most disturbing of all Beck's reflections is that once he made it back to high camp, Mr. Krakauer nor Mr. Groom offered him anything to eat or drink
for almost another 24 hours. The following morning after spending a night alone
in a tent, Krakauer reportedly stuck his head in
the tent to inform Beck that he was descending from
the south col and bade him goodbye. Again no
assistance was offered nor rendered. If Krakauer
can be so critical of others na dtheir decisions
why has he not examined his own role in the tragic outcome of these events?
The book is a good one, but due to the fact that
the author seems to have made some serious ommissions and distortions it may not stand
the test of time to become what it could have been - a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading - business management classic
Review: Into Thin Air was to reading what a bad car wreck is to driving. I couldn't put the book down. Its been 12 hours since I finished it and I am still chilled. I was reminded of Evan S. Connell's observation in Son of the Morning Star, when he noted that Custer shared a trait with many people who appear to be in the grip of destiny. We tend to do what has been successful in the past, even though it is irrational. The story of the Everest climbing season in 1996, how people died and how they lived, would be gripping without the author's honesty and insight. What J.K. brings to the story - his realizations months later that many of the things he believed were in fact a misunderstanding or even the effects of semi-suffocation on his brain - is a brutal account of how people live and die motivated by needs that don't necessarily make any sense.
People management, seduction of desire, competition, physical hardship, and the creepy feeling that I am probably just like all the human beings that survived the trip to the summit - I'd step over another person to get there, and feel their hand sliding across my bicep as I walked away from them - this is a truth no one likes to admit. J.K.'s story may not be 100% accurate but I suspect its very, very true.
Rating:
Summary: What a book!
Review: I saw Jon Krakauer last weekend in town (Bellingham, Washington) with a slide presentation and discussion for Into Thin Air. I hadn't read the book yet, but quickly became captured with his account of the experience. He said that he had written this novel to get it out of his head since it was obsessing his thoughts. He knew it was soon to write it, and acknowledged that because of this it is a raw reaction to the horrors he had just months prior experienced. At the presentation I purchased the book for my father, for fathers day, and had Jon sign it. I couldn't help myself from starting to read it a few days later, and finished it last night because I couldn't put it down to go to sleep. It was far too enthralling. I felt like I was there beside Jon, gasping for breath, anxiously turning each page. I was suppose to be reading my college text books all week, but I couldn't. I even tried to hide it from sight so I could get my homework done, but it didn't work. This book is a wonderfully written, honest, and exposed account of a tragedy due to altitude exposure, human error, greed, and an often disrespectful level of contempt for the vastness and power of the "Goddess of the sky". I highly recommend reading this book
Rating:
Summary: Best read at sea level...
Review: I tore through Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" in what was, for me, record pace. Ironically, my reading took place at an altitude of over 30,000 feet on United 805 from San Francisco to Chicago. When Krakauer mentions that the summit of Everest sits at a height approximately equivalent to the cruising altitude of a commercial airline, I looked out the window and down, and felt small. When Krakauer details the effects of the thin air at such a height, I noticed my breathing in the cabin becoming more labored. All told, he creates a vivid world for the reader to experience the May 10, 1996 and the events that lead up to it. I've spoken with a number of other readers of "Air," and all have agreed: it makes you never want to go to Everest, and want to hire a guide and book airfare to Kathmandu tomorrow. Strangely enough, any negative feelings I have towards the book started to materialize after I had actually finished the story. I expected the Author's Note section at the back of the book to provide more detail as to what's happened since. Instead, Krakauer proceeds to acknowledge a massive list of contributors to the book, including his agent. As a subscriber to Outside Magazine, I then read Krakauer's interview with the magazine's editor-in-chief. It spends a good deal of time rationalizing the profit which he yielded as a direct result of the experience. Lastly, just today I logged on to Amazon.com and noticed that an audio cassette of "Into Thin Air" has been added to the offering. All in all, I suppose it was simply a little more than I wanted to know. When I initially finished reading "Into Thin Air" I immediately wished I could have a chance to share a quiet cup of coffee and some conversation with Jon Krakauer. If I ever have that chance, after all the talk of agents, profits, and movie deals, I know I'd be fairly comfortable with him picking up the tab. Don't get me wrong, though, I'd still have that cup of coffee. Since releasing "Into Thin Air," Krakauer has been tarred and feathered both in conventional publications and on the Web. While the book provides a rich picture of Everest as a desolate and fearsome place, it also reveals more than a hint of Krakauer's conscience. While he does identify faulty judgement, he also points out that even good judgement can be worthless above 27,000 feet. And while he does point the finger at guides, at other expeditions, and at teammates, he also points it more often than not at himself. In the final analysis, though, Krakauer has skillfully crafted a picture of a place I'll likely never be, an event I'll never come close to experiencing. Regardless of any profit motives, any fault finding, and the rights and wrongs of the situation, "Into Thin Air" expanded my horizons, and that made it worth reading
Rating:
Summary: Redefining the term "page-turner"
Review: Krakauer's exceptionally well-written account of the fulfillment of his lifelong dream of climbing Everest and the tragic circumstances that shrouded the expedition is the best book I have read in years. He is frank, descriptive and minces no words. He comes down hard (too hard?) on himself and the others on the mountain that day for their role in the deaths of his fellow climbers. What drives a man to climb the world's highest peak in spite of the physical, mental and emotional trauma it has wrought on those who have attempted it before him? Krakauer's account explores this issue and answers some of those questions in a way even those of us who have never climbed a mountain can understand. As I read, I felt as if I were with Krakauer and his fellows as they scaled some of the most difficult terrain on the planet, all the while enduring winds, snow and wind chill of 100 below zero. I highly recommend the book.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous story!
Review: As a non-mountain climber, I have never had any interest in the sport, other than to note that its practitioners were mad. "Into Thin Air" has not changed my mind, but it has put a very human, and tragic, face on mountaineering. Note to Libertarians: Krakauer would like to see climbing with bottled gas on Everest restricted. Read this book to get your dander up. Seriously though, apparently both this book and the Outside magazine article that preceeded it were received with much anger by the friends and families of the late Everest guides Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, who died on Everest May 10-11, 1996 during a storm. As someone who had not heard of either man before May 1996, I don't think Krakauer has been as harsh on the two team leaders as has been alleged. Both Hall and Fischer come across as able, warm and highly competant guides who were nevertheless extremely competitive with each other and absolutely driven to summit Everest on May 10, 1996. In the end, this drive cost each man his life. I think the moral of the story is, don't ever entrust your life to someone whose judgment may depend on an abundance of bottled oxygen. Read this book. It's an incredible story
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