Into Thin Air
|
|
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details the author's expedition up Mount Everest on May 10, 1996 which turned catastrophic when eight climbers were killed on one day due to a 'rogue storm'. The author's expedition was led by the famed guide Rob Hall and there were other groups trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency was perceived as a competitor to Rob Hall's agency.
The author attributes such tragedies to the fact that the path to the summit is too crowded on the few days when weather is expected to be good. The other reasons include the fact that most of the climbers, including the author were not expert climbers. They paid around $65,000 each for the climb and were, for the most part, dependent on the Sherpas and guides. However, the success to death ratio on Mount Everest in 1996 was actually lower than the historical average.
This book, being a rare first hand account of such a catastrophe, became a best seller.