I was shocked by how different The Climb and Into Thin Air were. Not in content but in how the authors told the story. The Climb was a very focused account of Anatoli's experience. He rarely commented on the character of those around him and he rarely mentions anything about the actions of those outside of his expedition.
Anatoli has been described by some, and even describes himself, as a difficult person. He talked in his book about how he struggled to fulfill the parts of his job that involved making small talk. He did not have a particularly amazing grasp of english. Anatoli had also climbed Everest twice before the 1996 season. Nothing was new, exciting, or scary for him. So upon reflection, it makes sense that his book would be more of a factual display of the events.
Into Thin Air, on the other hand, was the written by a journalist attempting his first 8000m peak. It has a lot of history of the mountain, history of the other clients and expeditions, and personal emotion. His descriptions of his own feelings were some of my favourite parts.
On his flight into Kathmandu:
"As I gazed across the sky at this contrail, it occurred to me that the top of Everest was precisely the same height as the pressurized jet bearing me through the heavens. That I proposed to climb to the cruising altitude of an Airbus 300 jetliner struck me, at that moment, as preposterous, or worse. My palms felt clammy."On his first time crossing the Khumbu Icefall:
"Crusty old alpinists who've survived a lifetime of close scrapes like to counsel young proteges that staying alive hinges on listening carefully to one's 'inner voice.' Tales abound of one or another climber who decided to remain in his or her sleeping bag after detecting some inauspicious vibe in the ether and thereby survived a catastrophe that wiped out others who failed to head the portents.
I didn't doubt the potential value of paying attention to subconscious cues. As I waited for Rob to lead the way, the ice underfoot emitted a series of loud cracking noises, like small trees being snapped in two, and I felt myself wince with each pop and rumble from the glacier's shifting depths. Problem was, my inner voice resembled Chicken Little; it was screaming that I was about to die, but it did that almost every time I laced up my climbing boots. I therefore did my damnedest to ignore my histrionic imagination and grimly followed Rob into the eerie blue labyrinth."
By the time the storm hit on summit day, Krakauer was back in his tent at Camp IV. Therefore, his account of what went on during the rest of that day and night is all from interviews with other clients, guides, and Sherpas. It must have been quite the task to try to piece it all together. He acknowledges that he made some initial errors in simply figuring out his own memories of the day. As he was descending, he saw who he thought was Andy Harris slide down in front of him, get up and walk towards Camp IV. He therefore assumed Andy Harris was safely in his tent. But the next morning, Harris was no where to be found. This gave rise to the idea that instead of walking into Camp IV, Harris had taken a wrong turn and walked off a ledge, falling to his death. It was discovered much later and after much comparison of stories, that he had not seen Andy Harris at all. He had seen Martin Adams, a member of Scott Fischer's expedition who did, in fact, arrive safely in Camp IV. Andy Harris had been last seen by Lopsang, one of Fischer's Sherpas, heading back up above the South Summit to help Rob Hall and Doug Hansen. The fact that everything occurred at 8000m in the middle of a storm makes everything more complicated.
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There were some discrepancies between The Climb and Into Thin Air in the expected places. Krakauer comments on Anatoli's choice not to use oxygen. Both agree that Anatoli was carrying oxygen, in case he needed it, when he left Camp IV. Krakauer says Anatoli ditched his backpack and gave his oxygen to Neil Beidleman (another Mountain Madness guide) to carry for him; apparently he was trying to strip his load to the bare minimum because he wasn't using supplementary oxygen. Anatoli says that by the South Summit he was feeling fine and was planning to leave his oxygen bottle there and pick it up on his way down. However, since they were running late and Beidleman was going to be doing a lot of work in fixing ropes, he offered the bottle to him and he accepted it.
Krakauer thinks that all guides should use supplementary oxygen when taking clients to the summit. Anatoli thinks that if a climber has the experience and physiology to be able to climb above 8000m without oxygen, and if they have been properly acclimatized, it is better to guide without it. If you decide to use oxygen and then it runs out, you are much worse off than if you didn't use it all along.
The also just generally disagree about whether or not Anatoli should have descended ahead of the clients. But so much of that hinges on the conversation Anatoli had with Fischer. Without Fischer, no one can know for sure what was said.
In Krakauer's post script he too outlines the basis of the controversy between him and Boukreev/DeWalt. However, while DeWalt remains fast in his allegations and presents only the facts of the matter, Krakauer again interjects some personal feeling into the matter. Both describe an incident which occurred at a Banff book festival in which Anatoli was a panelist and Krakauer was a participant. It ended with a bit of shouting match across the auditorium. Both agree that afterwards the two met and talked it out. DeWalt is very cynical about it and doubts that much was reconciled. Krakauer, however, says that he regretted his outburst immediately, sought Anatoli out and insisted on talking things out.
"We agreed to disagree about certain points - primarily the wisdom of guiding Everest without bottled oxygen, and what was said between Boukreev and Fischer during their final conversation atop the Hilary Step - but both of us came to realize that we saw eye to eye on almost everything else of importance.
Although Boukreev's coauthor, Mr DeWalt (who wasn't present during the aforementioned meeting), continued to fan the flames of the dispute with gusto, I came away from my encounter with Anatoli in Banff somewhat hopeful of patching things up with him. Perhaps I was being overly optimistic, but I foresaw an end to the imbroglio. Seven weeks later, however, Anatoli was killed on Annapurna, and I realized that I'd begun my conciliatory efforts much too late."
My faith in Jon Krakauer has been restored.
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In the introduction, Krakauer explains that he wrote this book much earlier than many people thought he should. He was deeply troubled by what had happened on Everest and thought that writing the book might provide him some relief. He stresses though, the futility of judging and analyzing too harshly the decisions and actions of the climbers that day.
"It can't be stressed strongly enough, moreover, that Hall, Fischer, and the rest of us were forced to make such critical decisions while severely impaired with hypoxia. In pondering how this disaster could have occurred, it is imperative to remember that lucid thought is all but impossible at 29,000 feet."
"Analyzing what went wrong on Everest is a useful enough enterprise; it might conceivably prevent some deaths down the road. But to believe that dissecting the tragic events of 1996 in minute detail will actually reduce the future death rate in any meaningful way is wishful thinking. The urge to catalog the myriad blunders in order to 'learn from the mistakes' is for the most part an exercise in denial and self-deception. If you can convince yourself that Rob Hall died because he made a string of stupid errors and that you are too clever to repeat those same errors, it makes it easier for you to attempt Everest in the face of some rather compelling evidence that doing so is injudicious."
Turns out that even though May 1996 was tragic, it was not anything more than business as usual on Everest. Near the end of the book Krakauer points out that the 12 deaths were only 3 % of the 398 climbers who climbed about Base Camp that year. The historical fatality rate was 3.3% at the time. Or he lays it out a different ways, between 1921 and May 1996, there was 1 death for every 4 summits of the mountain. In May of 1996, the ratio was 1 death for every 7 summits.
So there you have it.
I'm ready for a break from Everest books. However, I'm sure I will return soon.
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