Survival In Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air

“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,” (Kraukauer, 32, 1997). In the story, Into Thin Air, the narrator, Jon Krakauer, discussed his and his team’s plight and account as they ascended Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain on Earth. From his perspective, he blamed Anatoli Boukreev for all the negativity and deaths that happened on their trip (Kraukauer, 1997). Since Boukreev descended the mountain early and refrained from using supplemental oxygen, Kraukauer stated that these …show more content…
They also felt like they knew the mountain too well, which cost them their lives in the end. It is okay to be confident, but one cannot be too confident, even if they had seen the top several times. No matter if one felt like they are experts of Everest, it is smart to always be extra careful, especially if the individual is a guide or leader. Contributing factors from this incident could be aspects like safety. After reading this text, many individuals can learn that they always need to be extra careful and precautious if they plan on climbing any mountain in the world, especially Everest. This incident could have been handled differently if they had followed their set turn around times, if the guides had not been competing with each other, and if the leaders stopped worrying about their own selfish thoughts. Unfortunately, if they had taken these precautions, individuals like Hall could have survived the climb up Mount Everest. “Later—after six bodies had been located, after a search for two others had been abandoned—people would ask why, if the weather had begun to deteriorate, had climbers on the upper mountain not heeded the signs?” (Krakauer, 8,