( Previous Books )8.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer -- When I first picked up this book, I was under the impression that Krakauer had only researched the Everest disaster that claimed the lives of five climbers on May 10th, 1996. I was surprised to discover that Krakauer was actually a member of one of the climbing expeditions, Adventure Consultants, that was led by Robert Hall. He was a journalist and a mountaineer who managed to get a place on the team so that he could write a piece for
Outside magazine. He was describing events that either he had seen first-hand or pieced together from conversations with other members of both Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness, the two teams that had lost members that day. Like
Into the Wild, you have another case where man decides to take on nature and gets his ass handed to him. In the end, the tragedy came about because of bad luck, bad weather, too many people on the mountain, and poor decisions on the part of both clients and guides.
Hey...I looked up the name of the author on wikipedia, and I discovered that he has also written
Under the Banner of Heaven. I've been thinking about picking that one up. Hmmm...