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Into Thin Air

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Into Thin Air 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 Mount Everest, 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 the climb. tional irony-when the opposite of Jon Krakauer, 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 Rob Hall 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 peak 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 Scott Fischer, leader; head guide David Breashears, leader; @ Mike Groom, guide Anatoli Boukreev, 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 @ Yasuko Namba, client (!) Beck Weathers, 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 Pumori, Arna can speak for a 7,000-foot abyss,8 I arrived at Dablam, and the other lesser the leaders ... for the notorious Hillary Step, 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.
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