Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer New softcover book 1996 Mt Everest disaster

INTO THIN AIR

A Personal Account of the 1996 Mt Everest disaster

by JON KRAKAUER

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New softcover book, 342 pages plus 8 pages of B&W photos. Includes a new postscript written in 1999

A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more - including Krakauer's - in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.

Reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion, Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996. He hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds.

This is the terrifying story of what really happened that fateful day at the top of the world, during what would be the deadliest season in the history of Everest. In this harrowing yet breathtaking narrative, Krakauer takes the reader along with his ill-fated expedition, step by precarious step, from Kathmandu to the mountain's pinnacle where, plagued by a combination of hubris, greed, poor judgement and plain bad luck, they would fall prey to the mountain's unpredictable fury.

This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy.  "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I on December 25th, 1997.


About the author

Jon Krakauer (b. April 12, 1954) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts as the third of five children and was raised in Corvallis, Oregon from the age of two. He competed in basketball at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington.

Krakauer's most recognized climb was a guided ascent of Mount Everest that became known as the 1996 Everest Disaster. Soon after summitting the peak, Krakauer's team met with disaster as four of five teammates (including group leader Rob Hall) perished while making their descent in the middle of a storm. A candid recollection of the event was published in Outside and eventually Into Thin Air. By the end of the climbing season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Everest history. Krakauer publicly criticized the commercialization of Mt. Everest following this tragedy.

Much of Krakauer's popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In November 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing involved great variety, in addition to his many works involving mountain climbing. His writing has also appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Architectural Digest. In 1990 Krakauer published Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains, which is a non-fiction short story collection by concentrating on mountaineering and rock climbing. The bestseller Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. In 1997, he expanded his September 1996 Outside article into his best known work, Into Thin Air. In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller.

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Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer