Personal Narrative: Into Thin Air

During the hike I thought a lot about my summer reading, but sadly it didn't help me face the monster... During July of 2015 I was reading Into Thin Air while driving down south. While there, my family went on a hike that was on a smaller scale of Everest, but still gave me many lessons to take away from it. It was a short but scenic drive from the place we were staying to the long, treacherous trail. My brother and I started walking at a faster pace than our parents so we arrived at the first obstacle before our parents. It was a rock about double the height of me that we had to scale up. It reminded me of climbing Everest; when they had to scale the ice wall. We hiked more until we got to a bridge over the water by about …show more content…
It was a waterfall and at least 100 feet high. There was a sign right next to it that said “4 People Have Died Here. Don’t Be the Next.” The sign inserted fear into me but I walked through cold water so the falls could rain down on me. I was getting drenched by the falls when the rest of my family showed up. We all cooled off under the falls. Right before we were set to leave my brother slipped on a slippery rock and the river turned red! My dad had to carry him back across the cold river to a rock to lay him down and check out his gash. It was a deep but small wound and now the trail caused an injury we wouldn't be able to fix; similar to Everest causing many people to get frostbite in their descend. We didn’t even bring a band-aid. Eventually, the bleeding stopped. We would have to get him down like the guides had to get their clients down from Everest in Into Thin Air. My parents took turns assisting him in taking him down the trail for 3 miles while I hiked a lot faster down. It was very tiring and energy draining for them. At some points they considered sitting down and waiting for help comparable to how the Everest made some people turn back in Into Thin Air. When we got to the bridge we couldn’t assist him anymore, but luckily he was able to finish off the hike. There were band-aids at the nature center and we patched him up. The main connection the trail had to Everest was that it was harder …show more content…
Krakauer because we both showcased the same trait. The trait was our unawareness of the struggle of other people on both of our descends. I thought once the bleeding stopped my brother would be okay, but after the hike I found out my parents could have needed my help with my brother. Mr. Krakauer figured out Yasuko Namba was just a little outside the tent needing his help. We also used a similar idea to get down. I used rivers to know which way to get down on the trail and Mr. Krakauer used landmarks to get down. Towards the end we both learned the same lesson of, “There is always someone out there that can use help.” Since then I’ve never assumed anyone was okay and will stay with them until they look me in the eye and can say it was okay. Another trait was we could move a lot faster than the rest of the group because I was the first to get to the waterfall and Mr. Krakauer was the first to get to the camp checkpoints. Looking into the eye of the monster me and Mr. Krakauer only thought about ourselves but we have both learned from that lesson and won’t make the same mistake