Reading a book about one of the deadliest mountaineering expeditions ever, while on my way to hike towering mountains nearly 2,000 miles from home was probably not the best way to hype myself up for a hike – But Jon Krakauer’s storytelling in “Into Thin Air” did exactly that.
This summer, a friend and I drove over 6,000 miles in two weeks, exploring four national parks and the Rocky Mountains. The trip was filled with action, adventure and hours upon hours in the car. Driving across Ohio and Kansas is exactly as exciting as it sounds.
During the times I was not on an eight hour driving shift, I found myself with idle hands. I had scrolled through enough of Instagram and Pinterest, and was getting tired of our road trip playlist. Then I remembered the book that I had stuffed into my bag, one I had been intending on reading for a while but never got around to it.
Krakauer recounts his experience of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, when on May 10, eight people died. At the time, it was the highest death toll recorded in a single day on the mountain. He was hired as a journalist by Outside Magazine to write a multiple-page story about a specific expedition led by Rob Hall during that spring Everest climbing season of 1996.
So there I sat – as an avid hiker and aspiring journalist – reading this heartbreaking story in my hotel room in Topeka, Kansas, about to begin my third day of driving across the midwest to hike the biggest mountains I had ever seen.
Krakauer went into detail, describing the gruesome conditions with the sheer cold and lack of oxygen at altitudes of over 17,000 ft. at base camp, and up to 29,035 ft. at the summit, according to National Geographic.
It’s funny, while reading the book, when Krakauer reached the summit I got excited and envisioned myself accomplishing the feat. When envisioning this I failed to consider all of the ailments that the climbers on the mountain that day had picked up.
High altitude cerebral edema is the end-stage of acute mountain sickness. The signs of HACE include a decline in mental function and consciousness, impaired coordination and slurred speech, according to the National Library of Medicine. This is hard to catch in the mountains and can be confused with general fatigue from the climb and altitude.
Thoughts of this with exposure and miscommunications about when to turn around and head back down, were rattling around my head on my way up the 14,065-foot-tall Mount Bierstadt in the Colorado Rockies.
I guess that is a product of Krakauer’s writing. Krakauer’s storytelling makes something that requires so much training, experience, and gall seem so doable. And I needed that. For the mountains I had yet to climb on this trip, mountains that would test my mental and physical limits, even though they were merely foothills compared to the ones I was reading about.
Doing things that scare me has been necessary to my personal development. If I can’t get myself to do them, reading about them is a good substitute. I would recommend “Into Thin Air” to anyone looking to experience some crazy adventure, without having to put themselves into harm’s way. Who knows, maybe it might motivate you to get out there like it did for me.