Before You from Into Thin Air

Literary Focus Make the Connection Ironies and Contradictions That Quickwrite ~ Spell Real-Life Disaster Can you imagine yourself standing on the In this true story of climbers struggling on 29,035-foot top of the world? The cold has , Murphy's law seems to numbed your body, the altitude has dulled have taken hold: "If there's a possibility your brain, and you are exhausted beyond that something can go wrong, it will." As belief. Now you have to get down-the you read, look for examples of situa­ most dangerous part of . tional irony-when the opposite of , the author of this maga­ what's expected or appropriate occurs. zine article, lived through that experience. Look also for the real-life contradic­ Why do you think some people, like tions and incongruities that lead to dis­ Krakauer, are so drawn to climbing moun­ aster-instances in which people don't do tains? Would you like to do it? Briefly jot what they say they will do or when things down why you would or wouldn't. don't come together as they should. For example, expedition leader con­ tradicts his own rule of an absolute cutoff Vocabulary Development time for reaching the summit. These and deteriorate (de-tir'e ·a· rat') v.: worsen. other fateful twists combine to spell innocuous (i . nak'yoo-as) adj.: harmless. tragedy for the cl imbers. notorious (no -t6r'e-as) adj.: famous, usually in an unfavorable sense. Reading Skills ~ Understanding Cause and Effect benign (bi . nin') adj.: here, favorable or harmless. A cause is the reason why something happens; an effect is the result of some apex (a'peks') n.: highest point; top. event. A single effect may have several crucial (kroo'shal) adj.: extremely impor­ causes, and a single cause may lead to tant; decisive. many effects. speculate (spek'ya-lat '} v.: think; guess. Everything that happens in this tragic story is connected by a complex pattern traverse (tra -vt:rs') v.: cross. of causes and effects, many of which are jeopardize (jep'ar- diz') v.: endanger. filled with irony. As you read, look for tenuous (ten'yoo. as) adj.: weak; slight. the causes that led to the disasters on Mount Everest. Look for the effects of certain decisions made by the climbers. (continued) Reading The questions at the open-book signs will Standard 3.8 help you. · Interpret and evaluat e t he impact of contradictions, ironies, and incongruities in a text.

Into Thin Air 349 Bac;:kground Hot Story, Cold Mountain The man who said he wanted to climb Since the May 1996 tragedy, more and Mount Everest "because it's there," more people have caught Everest fever, George Leigh Mallory, disappeared in a some paying as much as seventy thousand mist near the summit in 1924. The first dollars for a guided climb. Although many recorded conquest of the 29,035-foot of these climbers are experts, some are was achieved by Edmund Hillary of inexperienced-a problem that creates New Zealand and T enzing Norgay of grave dangers. Nepal in 1953. Since then more than 1,300 Making a Climb climbers have reached the summit, but Everest expeditions ascend the mountain about 170 have lost their lives to the in stages. From Base Camp, at 17,600 feet, mountain. they make short trips up and down to ac­ The journalist who wrote this magazine climatize, or get used to higher elevations. article barely escaped with his life. In 1996, This process may last several weeks be­ Outside magazine financed Jon Krakauer's fore the final climb to the top, which is climb, which he undertook as a client of also done in stages. Krakauer's group a commercial expedition. The day he made camp at 19,500 feet, 21,300 feet, reached the summit of Everest, eight other 24,000 feet, and 26,000 feet. The area climbers (including Krakauer's tour leader) above 25,000 feet is known as the Death died on the mountain. (This is the riskiest Zone. Here the air is so poor in oxygen form of participatory journalism, in that it's almost impossible for climbers to which a reporter takes part in the events make rational decisions. he or she is reporting.)

Some of the Climbers Involved in the Tragedy New Zealand-Based Team American-Based Team IMAX Film Crew © Rob Hall, leader; head guide , leader; head guide David Breashears, leader; @ Mike Groom, guide , guide film director @ Andy "Harold" Harris, guide Ed Viesturs, climber; Taiwan Team @ Doug Hansen, client film talent "Makalu" Gau Ming-Ho, leader @ Jon Krakauer, client;journalist @ , client (!) , client Lhakpa Chhiri Sherpa, climbing Sherpa

350 89@fflij Irony and Ambiguity • Generating Research Questions and Evaluating Sources The Balcony 27,600 feet

TIBET (Self-governing region of China) H I M '.'f Annapurna jl < Everest 26,504 ft. ,.,, 1-- 29,035 ft. NE PAL -1 North+ I INDIA ~ ,9'!'11,.. ,.,,.,.,.er:,!la, .,

Jon Krakauer

traddling the top of the world, one foot in 5Tibet and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently at the vast sweep of earth below. I understood on some dim, de­ tached level that it was a spectacular sight. I'd been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care. It was the afternoon of May 10. I hadn't slept in 57 hours. The only food I'd been able to force down over the preceding three days was a bowl of Ramen soup and a handful of peanut M&M's. Weeks of violent coughing had left me with two separated ribs, making it excruciatingly painful to breathe. Twenty-nine thousand twenty-eight feet 1 up in the troposphere,2 there was so little oxygen reaching my brain tl1at my mental capacity was that of a slow child. Under the circumstances, I was incapable of feeling much of anything except cold and tired. I'd arrived on the summit a few minutes after Anatoli Boukreev,3 a Russian guide with an American expedition, and just ahead of Andy Harris, a guide with the New Zealand-based commercial team that I was a part of and someone with whom I'd grown to be friends during the last six weeks. I snapped four quick photos of Harris and Boukreev striking summit poses, and then turned and started down. My watch read 1:17 P.M. All told, I'd spent less than five minutes on the roof of the world.

1. In 1999, after this article was written, scientists using sophisticated equipment determined the elevation of Everest to be 29,035 feet, not 29,028 feet as previously believed. 2. troposphere (tro'p;} • sfir') n.: portion of the atmosphere directly below the stratosphere (it extends from 6 to 8 miles above the earth's surface). 3. Anatoli Boukreev: Boukreev (pictured at left on Mount Everest) was killed in an avalanche about a year and a half later, on December 25, 1997, wbile climbing Annapurna in the Himalayas.

Into Thin Air 353 After a few steps, I paused to take another The uppermost shank of the Southeast Ridge photo, this one looking down the Southeast is a slender, heavily corniced fin 6 of rock and Ridge, the route we had ascended. Training my wind-scoured snow that snakes for a quarter­ lens on a pair of1climbers approaching the sum­ mile toward a secondary pinnacle known as the mit, I saw something that until that moment South Summit. Negotiating the serrated7 ridge had escaped my attention. To the south, presents few great technical hurdles, but the where the sky had been perfectly clear route is dreadfully exposed. After 15 just an hour earlier, a blanket of Nobody minutes of cautious shuffling over clouds now hid , Arna can speak for a 7,000-foot abyss,8 I arrived at Dablam, and the other lesser the leaders ... for the notorious , a peaks surrounding Everest. both men are pronounced notch in the ridge Days later-after six bodies named after Sir Edmund Hillary, had been found, after a search for two now dead. the first Westerner to climb the others had been abandoned, after surgeons mountain, and a spot that does require a had amputated4 the gangrenous5 right hand of fair amount of technical maneuvering. As I my teammate Beck Weathers-people would ask clipped into a fixed rope and prepared to rappel9 why, if the weather had begun to deteriorate, over the lip, I was greeted by an alarming sight. had climbers on the upper mountain not Thirty feet below, some 20 people were heeded the signs? Why did veteran Himalayan queued up10 at the base of the Step, and three guides keep moving upward, leading a gaggle of climbers were hauling themselves up the rope amateurs, each of whom had paid as much as that I was attempting to descend. I had no $65,000 to be ushered safely up Everest, into an choice but to unclip from the line and step aside. apparent death trap? The traffic jam comprised climbers from Nobody can speak for the leaders of the two three separate expeditions: the team I belonged guided groups involved, for both men are now to, a group of paying clients under the leader­ dead. But I can attest that nothing I saw early on ship of the celebrated New Zealand guide Rob the afternoon of May 10 suggested that a mur­ Hall; another guided party headed by American derous storm was about to bear down on us. To Scott Fischer; and a nonguided team from Tai­ my oxygen-depleted mind, the clouds drifting wan. Moving at the snail's pace that is the norm up the grand valley of ice known as the Western above 8,000 meters, the throng labored up the Cwm looked innocuous, wispy, insubstantial. · Gleaming in the brilliant midday sun, they ap­ peared no different from the harmless puffs of 6. corniced (kor'nist) fin: curving and narrow ridge. 7. serrated v. used as adj.: notched like a saw. convection condensation that rose from the val­ 8. abyss (~· bis') n.: deep crack or opening in the ley almost daily. As I began my descent, I was in­ earth's surface. deed anxious, but my concern had little to do 9. rappel (ra • pel') v.: descend a mountain by means of a double rope arranged around the climber's body so with the weather. A check of the gauge on my that he or sbe can control the slide downward. oxygen tank had revealed that it was almost 10. queued (kyoo'd) up: lined up. empty. I needed to get down, fast. Vocabulary deteriorate (de·tir'e·a·rat') v.: worsen. 4. amputated v.: cut off (a limb or body part) through innocuous (i · nak'yoo· as) adj.: harmless. surgery. 5. gangrenous (gaIJ'gr~ · n~s) adj.: affected by the decay notorious (no·tor'e·as) adj.: famous, usually in an of tissue resulting from a lack of blood supply. unfavorable sense.

354 li@i§j Irony and Ambiguity • Generating Research Questions and Evaluating Sources Hillary Step one by one, while I nervously bided 47-year-old Namba was 40 minutes away from my time. becoming the oldest woman to climb Everest Harris, who left the summit shortly after I and the second Japanese woman to reach the did, soon pulled up behind me. Wanting to highest point on each continent, the so-called conserve whatever oxygen remained in my tank, Seven Summits. I asked him to reach inside my backpack and Later still, Doug Hansen- another member turn off the valve on my regulator, which he did. of our expedition, a postal worker from Seattle for the next ten minutes I felt surprisingly good. who had become my closest friend on the My head cleared. I actually seemed less tired mountain-arrived atop the Step. "It's in the than with the gas turned on. Then, abruptly, I bag!" I yelled over the wind, trying to sound felt like I was suffocating. My vision dimmed more upbeat than I felt. Plainly exhausted, Doug and my head began to spin. I was on the brink of mumbled something from behind his oxygen losing consciousness. mask that I didn't catch, shook my hand weakly, Instead of turning my oxygen oft~ Harris, in and continued plodding upward. his hypoxically 11 impaired state, had mistakenly The last climber up the rope was Fischer, cranked the valve open to full flow, draining the whom I knew casually from Seattle, where we tank. I'd just squandered the last of my gas going both lived. His strength and drive were leg­ nowhere. There was another tank waiting for me endary-in 1994 he'd climbed Everest without at the South Summit, 250 feet below, but to get using bottled oxygen-so I was surprised at how there I would have to slowly he was moving and how hammered he ~ CAUSEAND descend the most ex- EFFECT looked when he pulled his mask aside to say posed terrain on the I . What is the un­ hello. "Bruuuuuuce!" he wheezed with forced entire route without expected result of cheer, employing his trademark, fratboyish benefit of supplemental Krakauer's request greeting. When I asked how he was doing, Fisch­ of Harris? oxygen. ~ er insisted he was feeling fine: "Just dragging a But first I had to wait for the crowd to thin. little today for some reason. No big deal." With I removed my now useless mask, planted my the Hillary Step finally dear, I dipped into the ice ax into the mountain's frozen hide, and hun­ strand of orange rope, swung quickly around kered on the ridge crest. As I exchanged banal 12 Fischer as be slumped over his ice ax, and rap­ congratulations with the climbers filing past, pelled over the edge. inwardly I was frantic: "Hurry it up, hurry it It was after 2:30 when I made it down to the upl" I silently pleaded. "While you guys are South Summit. By now tendrils of mist were messing around here, J'm losing brain cells by wrapping across the top of 27,890-foot the millions[" and lapping at Everest's summit pyramid. No Most of the passing crowd belonged to Fisch­ longer did the weather look so benign. I grabbed er's group, but near the back of the parade two a fresh oxygen cylinder, jammed it onto my regu­ of my teammates eventually appeared: Hall lator, and hurried down into the gathering cloud. and Yasuko Namba. Girlish and reserved, the Four hundred vertical feet above, where the summit was still washed in bright sun­ light under an immaculate cobalt sky, my 11. hypoxically 111fr.: characterized by hypoxia, a condi­ tion resulting from a decrease in the oxygen reach­ ing body tissues. Hypoxia is a common condition at Vocabulary wry high altitudes. benign (bi· nin') adj.: here, favorable or harmless. 12. banal adj.: everyday; commonplace. ------

Into Thin Air 355 compadres13 were dallying, 14 memorializing Everest and consequently hid from Hall, was their arrival at the apex of the planet with pho­ that in the low barometric pressure at high alti­ tos and high-fives-and using up precious ticks tude, his eyesight failed. Nearly blind when he'd of the clock. None of them imagined that a hor­ left Camp Four in the middle of the night but rible ordeal was drawing nigh. None of them hopeful that his vision would improve at day­ suspected that by the end of that long day, every break, he stuck close to the person in front of minute would matter.... him and kept climbing. Upon reaching the Southeast Ridge shortly t 3 P.M., within minutes of leaving the after sunrise, Weathers had confessed to Hall South Summit, I descended into clouds that he was having trouble seeing, at which point Rahead of the others. Snow started to fall. In Hall declared, "Sorry, pal, you're going down. I'll the flat, diminishing light, it became hard to tell send one of the Sherpas15 with you."Weathers where the mountain ended and where the sky countered that his vision was likely to improve began. It would have been very easy to blunder as soon as the sun crept higher in the sky; Hall off the edge of the ridge and never be heard said he'd give Weathers 30 minutes to find out­ from again. The lower I went, the worse the after that, he'd have to wait there at 27,500 feet weather became. for Hall and the rest of the group tQ come back When I reached the Balcony again, about down. Hall didn't want Weathers descending 4 P.M., I encountered Beck Weathers standing alone. ''I'm dead serious about this," Hall alone, shivering violently. Years earlier, Weathers had undergone radial keratotomy to correct his 15. Sherpas: Tibetan people living on the southern vision. A side effect, which he discovered on slopes of the Himalayas. As experienced mountain climbers, the Sherpas are hired by expeditions to haul loads and set up camps and ropes. 13. compadres (bm ,pa'draz') n.: close friends; in this case, fellow members of tbe climbing team. Vocabulary 14. dallying v.: wasting time. apex (a'peks') n.: highest point; top.

Doug Hansen · approaching the summit.

356 Irony and Ambiguity • Generating Research Questions and Evaluating Sources admonished his client. "Promise me that you'll Suddenly, Harris 1 ~ appeared out of the gloom sit right here until I return." and sat beside me. At this point there was no "I crossed my heart and hoped to die," Weath­ mistaking that he was in appalling shape. His ers recalls now, "and promised I wouldn't go any­ checks were coated with an armor of frost, one where." Shortly after noon, Hutchison, Taske, and eye was frozen shut, and his speech was slurred. Kasischke 1<, passed by with their Sherpa escorts, He was frantic to reach the tents. After briefly but Weathers elected not to accompany them. discussing tbc best way to negotiate the ice, Har­ "The weather was still good," he explains, "and I ris started scooting down on his butt, facing for­ saw no reason to break my promise to Rob." ward. "Andy," I yelled after him, "it's crazy to try By the time I encountered Weathers, however, it like that!" He yelled something back, but the conditions were turning ugly. "Come down with words were carried off by the screaming wind. me," I implored, ''I'll get you down, no problem." A second later he lost his purchase 19 and was He was nearly convinced, until I made the mis­ rocketing down on his back. take of mentioning that Groom was on his way Two hundred feet below, I could make out down, too. In a day of many mistakes, this would Harris's motionless form. I w,1s sure he'd broken turn out to be a crucial one. "Thanks anyway," at least a leg, maybe his neck. But then he stood Weathers said. 'TH _just wait for Mike. He's got a up, waved that he was OK, and started stum­ rope; he'll be able to CAUSE AND bling toward camp, which was for the moment s h mt-rope 17 me."S e- EFFECT in plain sight, 150 yards beyond. crctly relieved, I hurried 1. What is the effect I could see three or four people shining lights toward the , of Weathers's promise outside the tents. I watched Harris walk across L'>..:?- to Hall? 1,500 feet below. ~ the flats to the edge of camp, a dist,rnce he cov­ These lower slopes proved to be the most dif­ ered in less than ten minutes. When the clouds ficult part of the descent. Six inches of powder closed in a moment later, cutting off my view, he snow blanketed outcroppings of loose shale. was within 30 y.uds of the tents. I didn't see him Climbing down them demanded unceasing con­ again after that, but I was certain that he'd centration, an all but impossible feat in my cur­ reached the security of camp, where Sherpas rent state. By 5:30, however, I was finally within would be waiting with hot tea. Sitting out in the 200 vertical feet of Camp Four, and only one ob­ storm, with the ice bulge still standing between stacle stood between me and safety: a steep bulge me and the tents, I felt a pang of envy. I was of rock-hard ice that I'd have to descend without angry that my guide hadn't waited for me. a rope. Hut the weather had deteriorated into a Twenty minutes later I was in camp. I fell into full-scale blizzard. Snow pellets born on 70-rnph my tent with my crampons still on, zipped tbc winds stung my face; any exposed skin was in­ door tight, and sprawled across the frost-covered stantly frozen. The tents, no more than 200 hori­ floor. I was drained, more exhausted than I'd ever zontal yards away, were only intermittently visible through the whiteout. There was zero 18. After writing this article, Krakauer discovered margin for error. Worried about making a critical through conversations with Martin Adams (a client on Scott Fisd1er's team) that the pcrsm1 he thought blunder, I sat down to marshal my energy. wns Harris was, in foct, M,utin Adams. 19. purchase n.: firm hold.

16. Stuart Hutchison, Dr. John Taske, and Lou Vocabulary Kasischke were three clients on Rob Hall's team. crucial (kroo·~~I) adj.: extremely important; 17. short-rope 11. used as v.: assist a weak or injured decisive. climber by hauling him or her. Into Thin Air 357- been in my life. But I was safe. Andy was safe. down with him. Soon after they began their The others would be coming into camp soon. descent, just below the top, Hansen apparently We'd done it. We'd climbed Mount Everest. ran out of oxygen and collapsed. "Pretty much It would be many hours bcfcxe I learned that the same thing happened to Doug in '95," says everyone had in fact not made it back to camp­ Ed Viesturs, an American who guided the peak that one teammate was already dead and that 23 for Hall that year. "He was fine during the as- other men and women were caught in a desper­ cent, but as soon as he CAUSEAND ate struggle for their lives .... started down he lost it EFFECT mentally and physically. 3. What contradiction eanwhile, Hall and Hansen were still on He turned into a real is evident in Hall's the frightfully exposed summit ridge, en­ behavior? What is the zombie, like he'd used result? Mgaged in a grim struggle of their own. The everything up."~ 46-year-old I lansen, whom Hall had turned At 4:31 P.M., Hall radioed Base Camp to say back just below this spot exactly a year ago, had that he and Hansen were above the Hillary Step been determined to bag the summit this time and urgently needed oxygen. Two full bottles around. "I want to get this thing done and out of were waiting for them at the South Summit; if my life," he'd told me a couple of days earlier. "I Hall had known this he could have retrieved the don't want to have to come back here." gas fairly quickly and then climbed hack up to Indeed Hansen had reached the top this time, give Hansen a fresh tank. But Harris, in the though not until after 3 P.M., well after Hall's throes of his oxygen-starved dementia, 20 over­ predetermined turnaround time. Civen HalJ's heard the 4:3 I radio call while descending the conservative, systematic nature, many people Southeast Ridge and broke in to tell Hall that all wonder why he didn't turn Hansen around the bottles at the South Summit were empty. when it became obvious that he was running So Hall stayed with Hansen and tried to bring late. It's not far-fetched to speculate that because the helpless client down without oxygen, but Hall had talked Hansen into coming back to could get him no farther than the top of the Everest this year, it would have been especially Hillary Step. hard for him to deny Hansen the summit a Cotter, a very close friend of both Hall and second time-especially when all of Fischer's Harris, happened to be a few miles from Everest clients were still marching blithely toward Base Camp at the time, guiding an expedition the top. on Pumori. Overhearing the radio conversations "It's very difficult to turn someone around between Hall and Base Camp, he called Hall at high on the mountain," cautions Guy Cotter, a 5:36 and again at 5:57, urging his mate to leave New Zealand guide who summited Everest with Hansen and come down alone .... Hall, how­ Hall in 1992 and was guiding the peak for him ever, wouldn't consider going down without in 1995 when Hansen made his first attempt. Hansen. "[fa client sees that the summit is close and they're dead set on getting there, they're going to laugh in your face and keep going up." In any case, for whatever reason, Hall did not 20. dementia (Ji• men'~1;i) 11.: mental impairment; madness. turn Hansen around. Instead, after reaching the summit at 2: IO P.M., Hall waited for more than Vocabulary an hour for Hansen to arrive and then headed speculate (spek'yd · lat'} v.: think; guess.

358 ld@(lj Irony and Ambiguity • Generating Research Questions and Evaluating Sources There was no further word from Hall until find an ice ax planted about 50 feet below the the middle of the night. At 2:46 A.M. on May 11, Hillary Step, along a highly exposed section of Cotter woke up to hear a long, broken transmis­ ridge where the fixed ropes came to an end. It is sion, probably unintended: Hall was wearing a quite possible that Hall managed to get Hansen remote microphone clipped to the shoulder down the ropes to this point, only to have him strap of his backpack, which was occasionally lose his footing and fall 7,000 feet down the keyed on by mistake. In this instance, says Cot­ sheer Southwest Face, leaving his ice ax jammed ter, "I suspect Rob didn't even know he was into the ridge crest where he slipped. transmitting. I could hear someone yelling- During the radio calls to Base Camp early on it might have been Rob, but I couldn't be sure May 11, Hall revealed that something was wrong because the wind was so loud in the back- with his legs, that he was no ground. He was saying something like 'Keep longer able to walk and was moving! Keep going!' presumably to Doug, shaking uncontrollably. urging him on." If that was indeed the case, it meant that in the wee hours of the morning Ha11 and Hansen were still struggling from the Hillary Step toward the South Summit, taking more than 12 hours to traverse a CAUSEAND stretch of ridge typically EFFECT covered by descending 4. Why does it take climbers in half an t hem so long to traverse the ridge? hour. ~ Ha11's next call to Base Camp was at 4:43 A.M. He'd finally reached the South Summit but was unable to descend farther, and in a series of trans­ missions over the next two hours he sounded confused and irrational. "Harold21 was with me last.night;' Hall insisted, when in fact Harris had reached the South Col at sunset. "But he doesn't seem to be with me now. He was very weak." Mackenzie22 asked him how Hansen was doing. "Doug," Hall replied, "is gone." That was all he said, and it was the last mention he ever made of Hansen. On May 23, when Breashears and Viesturs, of the IMAX team,23 reached the summit, they found no sign of Hansen's body but they did

21. Harold: Andy Harris's nickname. 22. Mackenzie: Dr. Caroline Mackenzie was Base Camp doctor for Rob Hall's team. 23. IMAX team: Another team of climbers, who were Vocabulary shooting a $5.5-million giant-screen movie ahout traverse (tra · vtrs') v.: cross. Mount Everest. The movie was released in 1998.

Into Thin Air 359 This was very disturbing news to the people I would have gone down six hours ago, pal. Just down below, but it was amazing that Hall was send a couple of the boys up with a big thermos even alive after spending a night without shelter of something hot-then I'll be fine." or oxygen at 28,700 feet in hurricane-force wind At 6:20 P.M., Hall was patched through a sec­ and minus- I 00-degree wind chill. ond time to Arnold in Christchurch. "Hi, my At 5 A.M., Base Camp patched through a call sweetheart," he said in a slow, painfully distorted on the satellite telephone to Jan Arnold, Hall's voice. "I hope you're tucked up in a nice warm wife, seven months pregnant with their first bed. How arc you doing?" child in Christchurch, New Zt:aland. Arnold, a "l can't tell you how much I'm thinking about respected physician, had summited Everest with you!" Arnold replied. "You sound so much better Hall in 1993 and entertained no illusions about than I expected.... Are you warm, my darling?" the gravity of her husband's predicament. "My "In the context of the altitude, the setting, I'm heart really sank when I heard his voice," she re­ reasonably comfortable," }!all answered, doing calls. "He was slurring his words markedly. He his best not to alarm her. 2 sounded like Major Torn .i or something, like he "How are your feet?" was just floating away. I'd been up there; I knew "I haven't taken me boots off to check, but what it could be like in bad weather. Rob and I I think I may have a bit of frostbite." had talked about the impossibility of being res­ 'Tm looking forward to making you com­ cued from the summit ridge. As he himself had pletely better when you come home," said put it, 'You might as well be on the moon.' " Arnold. "l just know you're going to be rescued. By that time, Hall had located two full oxygen Don't feel that you're alone. I'm sending all my bottles, and after struggling for four hours try­ positive energy your way!" Before signing oft~ ing to de-ice his mask, around 8:30 A.M. ht· Hall told his wife, "I love you. Sleep well, my finally started breathing the life-sustaining gas. sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Several times he announced that he was prepar­ These would be the last words anyone would ing to descend, only to change his mind and hear him utter. Attempts to make radio contact remain at the South Summit. The day had with Hall later that night and the next day went started out sunny and clear, but the wind re­ unanswered. Twelve days later, when Breashears mained fierce, and by late morning the upper and Viesturs climbed over the South Summit mountain was wrapped with thick clouds. on their way to the top, they found Hall lying Climbers at Camp Two reported that the wind on his right side in a CAUSEAND over the summit sounded like a squadron of shallow ice~hollow, EFFECT 747s, even from 8,000 feet below.... his upper body buried 5. Name several of Throughout that day, Hall's friends begged beneath a drift of the causes that led to Hall's death. him to make an effort to descend from the snow.~ South Summit under his own power. At 3:20 P.M., after one such transmission from arly on the morning of May 11, when I Cotter, Hall began to sound annoyed. " Look," returned to Camp Four, Hutchison, stand­ he said, "if I thought I could manage the knots Eing in for Groom, who was unconscious in on the fixed ropes with me frostbitten hands, his tent, organized a team of four Sherpas to lo­ cate the bodies of our teammates Weathers and 24. Major Tom: reference to the David Bowie song "Space Oddity," which is about an ast ronaut, Major Namba. The Sherpa search party, headed by 'fom, who is lost and floating in space. Lhakpa Chhiri, departed ahead of Hutchison,

360 F@§j Irony and Ambiguity • Generating Research Questions and Evaluating Sources -11111_.;, .. who was so exhausted and befuddled that he for- would certainly die hefore they could be carried got to put his boots on and left camp in his light, down to Base Camp, and attempting a rescue smooth-soled liners. Only when Lhakpa Chhiri would needlessly jeopardize the lives of the pointed out the blunder did Hutchison return other climbers on the Col, most of whom were for his boots. Following Boukreev's directions, going to have enough trouble getting themselves the Sherpas had no trouble locating the down safely. two bodies at the edge of the Kang­ "He was Hutchison decided that Chhiri was shung Face. as close to right. There was only one choice, The first body turned out to be however difficult: Let nature take Namba, but Hutchison couldn't death as a person its inevitable course with Weath­ tell who it was until he knelt in can be and still ers and Namba, and save the the howling wind and chipped a be breathing." group's resources for those who three-inch-thick carapace of ice from could actually be helped. It was a 2 her face. To his shock, he discovered that classic act of triage. ~ When Hutchison she was still breathing. Both her gloves were returned to camp at 8:30 A.M. and told the rest gone, and her hare hands appeared to be frozen of us of his decision, nobody doubted that it was 2 solid. Her eyes were dilated. ~ The skin on her the correct thing to do. face was the color of porcelain. "[twas terrible," Later that day a rescue team headed by two of Hutchison recalls."[ was overwhelmed. She was Everest's most experienced guides, Pete Athans very near death. I didn't know what to do." and Todd Burleson, who were on the mountain He turned his attention to Weathers, who lay with their own clients, arrived at Camp Four. 20 feet away. His face was also caked with a thick Burleson was standing outside the tents about armor of frost. Balls of ice the size of grapes were 4:30 P.M. when he noticed someone lurching matted to his hair and eyelids. After cleaning the slowly toward camp. The person's bare right 2 frozen detritus 1, from his face, Hutchison dis­ hand, naked to the wind and horribly frostbit­ covered that he, too, was still alive: "Beck was ten, was outstretched in a weird, frozen salute. mumbling something, I think, but I couldn't tell Whoever it was reminded Athans of a mummy what he was trying to say. His right glove was in a low-budget horror film. The mummy missing and he had terrible frostbite. He was as turned out to be none other tban Beck Weathers, close to death as a person can be and still be somehow risen from the dead. breathing." A couple of hours earlier, a light must have Badly shaken, Hutchison went over to the gone on in the reptilian core of Weathers' Sherpas and asked Lhakpa Chhiri's advice. comatose29 brain, and he regained conscious­ Lhakpa Chhiri, an Everest veteran respected by ness. "Initially I thought I was in a dream," he Sherpas and sahibs27 alike for his mountain recalls. "Then I saw how badly frozen my right savvy, urged Hutchison to leave Weathers and hand was, and that helped bring me around to Narnba where they lay. Even if they survived long reality. Finally I woke up enough to recognize enough to be dragged back to Camp Four, they 1 28. triage (tre •iizh ) n.: assigning of priorities of med­ ical care based on chances for survival. 25. dilated v. used as adj.: made wider; hcrl', referring to 29. comatose adj.: deeply unconscious due to injury or the pupil of the eye. disease. 26. detritus (de•trft';is) 11.: debris. Vocabulary 27. sahibs (sa'ibz') 11.: term used hy Sherpas to refer to jeopardize (jep'ar · diz') v.: endanger. the paying members of the expeditions. Into Thin Air 361- that the cavalry3° wasn't coming so I better do over the preceding 72 hours. Then, nervous as a something about it myself." cat, I headed down into the icefall for one last Although Weathers was blind in his right eye trip through the maze of decaying seracs.32 and able to focus his left eye within a radius of only three or four feet, he started walking into 'd always known, in the abstract, that climb­ the teeth of the wind, deducing correctly that ing mountains was a dangerous pursuit. But camp lay in that direction. If he'd been wrong he I until I climbed in the Himalayas this spring, would have stumbled immediately down the I'd never actually seen death at close range. And , the edge of which was a few there was so much of it: Including three members yards in the opposite direction. Ninety minutes of an Indo-Tibetan team who died on the north later he encountered side just below the summit in the same May 10 CAUSEAND "some unnaturally EFFECT storm and an Austrian killed some days later, 11 smooth, bluish-looking 6. How did Weathers men and women lost their lives on Everest in May rocks," which turned out save his own life? What 1996, a tie with 1982 for the worst single-season to be the tents of Camp is ironic about his death toll in the peak's history. ...33 situation? Four.~ Climbing mountains will never be a safe, pre­ The next morning, May 12, Athans, dictable, rule-bound enterprise. It is an activity Burleson, and climbers from the IMAX team that idealizes risk-taking; its most celebrated fig­ short-roped Weathers down to Camp Two. On ures have always been those who stuck their the morning of May 13, in a hazardous heli­ necks out the farthest and managed to get away copter rescue, Weathers and Gau3 1 were evacu­ with it. Climbers, as a species, are simply not ated from the top of the icefall by Lieutenant distinguished by an excess of common sense. Colonel Madan Khatri Chhetri of the Nepalese And that holds especially true for Everest army. A month later, a team of Dallas surgeons climbers: When presented with a chance to would amputate Weathers' dead right hand just reach the planet's highest summit, people are below the wrist and use skin grafts to recon­ surprisingly quick to abandon prudence alto­ struct his left hand. gether. "Eventually," warns Tom Hornbein, 33 After helping to load Weathers and Gau into years after his ascent of the West Ridge, "what the rescue chopper, I sat in the snow for a long happened on Everest this season is certain to while, staring at my boots, trying to get some happen again." • grip, however tenuous, on what had happened · 32. seracs n.: pointed masses of ice. 30. cavalry n.: soldiers on horseback or motorized 33. It actually was the worst death toll on record. After transport; an allusion to the idea that troops were Krakauer wrote this article, a twelfth death was not coming to the rescue. discovered. 31. Gau: "Makalu" Gau Ming-Ho, leader of the Vocabulary Taiwanese National Expedition, another team tenuous (ten'yoo·as) weak; slight. climbing on Everest. adj.: Meet the Writer

) Jon Krakauer

Journalist Climber the article into a book, Into Thin Air, which Jon Krakauer ( 1954- ) had mountain was an immediate bestseller. Despite that climbers as boyhood heroes instead of base­ success, Krakauer has suffered grief and ball players or movie stars. He made his first guilt over the disaster on Mount Everest climb when he was only eight and after col­ and has said, lege became a "climbing bum." During the ''I 'm never climbing it again, never.... 1980s, he began writing articles on outdoor I wish I hadn't gone this time. ,, subjects. In 1996, when Outside magazine asked For Independent Reading Krakauer to write about Everest, he was an If you enjoyed reading this excerpt from experienced climber but had never been Krakauer's magazine article, you might want above 17,200 feet. He later said, to read the book Into Thin Air ( 1997), ''If you don't understand Everest Krakauer's full-length account of the and appreciate its mystique, you're ill-fated Everest expeditions. You never going to understand this might also enjoy ( 1996), tragedy and why it's quite likely to Krakauer's terrifying true account be repeated.,, of a young man's fateful wilderness adventure. After the disaster, Krakauer conducted dozens of inter­ views with other survivors. His article, completed five weeks after his return from Nepal, was pub- lished in September 1996. r'r Krakauer still felt such a need to get the experience off his .., .. chest that he soon expanded

Into Thin Air 363 ",.y ~ Literary Response and Analysis

Reading Check Discuss how the events described ) affected your previous opinion of I . Make a list of the main events in this mountain climbing. (Check your Everest story. Then, circle the events Quickwrite notes.) ~ during which Krakauer or other climbers were in grave danger. Tell 8. In an interview Krakauer gave about the outcome of each circled event. his experience in 1996 on Everest, he said, "We should think of Everest not as a mountain, but as the geologic em­ Interpretations bodiment of myth." What do you 2. Find and explain at least four examples think he means by that statement? In of situational irony, contradic­ what way is Everest a "chunk of tions, or incongruities in the article. myth"? (Hint: Consider what happens to Rob Hall and Beck Weathers for starters.) Evaluation 3. Situational irony is a favorite device 9. Evaluate the article in terms of its of short story writers. What impact subjectivity and objectivity. Find does it have in this nonfiction narrative? some of the subjective details 4. Choose one tragedy that happened on (thoughts, feelings, personal informa­ the mountain-for example, the death tion) that Krakauer includes. Would of Doug Hansen or the loss of Beck you prefer reading a totally objective Weathers's right hand. Draw a cause­ (factual) account? Explain. and-effect diagram similar to the one below to show the complex causes chat led to the tragedy. ~ Writing Comparing Media Coverage Today most important news events are covered in a variety of media genres-for example, newspapers, newsmagazines, TV news reports, TV newsmagazines, even TV talk shows. In 1996, the tragic Everest expedition was a hot news story for some time. Several of the survivors, such as 5. Are there any real-life heroes in this Beck Weathers, became instant celebrities story? If so, who are they, and why do and appeared on TV talk shows. you think they are heroes? Pick an event from today's news that 6. What conclusions does Krakauer interests you-any event that is widely draw at the end of chis selection? Do covered in both newspapers and on you chink these conclusions apply to television. Follow coverage of the event Reading Standard 3.8 ocher "risk takers" as well? Explain. in different genres, and write a brief Interpret and 7. What passages in this narrative im­ report comparing the coverage in those evaluate the impact of press you, puzzle you, shock you, or genres. contradictions, cause other strong reactions? Read Use Comparing Media Genres, pages ironies, and incongruities those passages aloud in a group. 382-389, for help with this assignment. in a text.

364 li@§ij Irony and Ambiguity • Generating Research Questions and Evaluating Sources