IRP Post 5 - Link

http://classic.mountainzone.com/climbing/fischer/letters.html

This is one of the best website I've seen on this topic so far. This shows and outlines the climbers reactions and responses to Into Thin Air. Different people talk about who and what to blame and what really happened on that fateful climb. Surprisingly the book is nearly 100% accurate and not spiced up with hints of exaggeration. There are a couple parts, as witnesses point out, that Krakauer just didn't know about so he never added them into the book, or missed the little details about the climbers and exact conversations that happened.

IRP Post 5 - video

Can you see anything?.... neither can I, or anyone else on the mountain for that matter. This is a picture of Mt. Everest during a snow storm. After reading Krakauer tell us the story of him mistaking someone for someone else and losing part of his team, it is easy to tell why. This, to the best of my knowledge, is a moderate storm on the mountain. Being out there in a blizzard when you can barley see a foot in front of you is something that is scary beyond belief just to think of. Knowing this, I can sympathize with Krakauer and know his mistakes were not because of lack of concern, but because the conditions were so harsh and ruthless.

IRP Post 5 - Cited Passage

"I was stunned. For two months I'd been telling people that Harris had walked off the edge of the South Col to his death, when he hadn't done that at all. My error had greatly and unnecessarily compounded the pain of Fiona McPherson; Andy's parents, Ron and Mary Harris; his brother, David Harris; and his many friends." (pg. 288).

To me, this one passage sums up the whole Mt. Everest experience. There was just a lot of mistakes, simple as that. Mistakes on the way up, the decent, and even the after math of the disaster. People were misremembered and thought to be someone else. It was just one big mess that seemed like it would never play out the right way. This brings up the theme of guilt to me. Krakauer felt guilty because of everyone he had hurt telling people the wrong, misinformed story about what really happened that one dreadful day. He had thought his friend Andy had fell off the cliff when he had been thinking of Martin Adams the whole time, who was fine. This misunderstanding just goes to show how something so simple can effect so many other people's lives and branch out quickly. This idea leads off of those in previous posts.

IRP Post 4 - Video

Left To Die Video

This video gives the story of a man left to die (obviously) while climbing. This is a key part of the book because two of the climbers Beck Weathers and Yasuko Namba were left to die near the South Col, away from the main trail on Everest. This leads in to a major theme of the book which is friendship and trustworthiness. Climbing to the summit takes a lot of trust in the people around you, they are the ones essentially keeping you alive. Trustworthiness just comes along with it and you hold the lives of other people in your hands, just as you hold theirs.

IRP Post 4 - Link

Mt. Everest Sickness Stories/ Facts

This provided link shows the hidden dangers of climbing such a high and tough mountain. Usually a climber will feel some sort of bowel or stomach sickness and this can be hindering to even the most experienced mountaineers. It makes you dehydrated, exhausted, and literally wipes all of the energy from your system in just a matter of hours. All this relates to important events that went on in this 3rd section because the the root of all the problems was people getting sick and slowing down the whole climbing process.

IRP Post 4 - Cited Passage

"He'd already made special trips to assist Tim Meadows, Pete Schoening, and Dale Kruse. And now, on what should have been a badly needed day and a half of rest, Fischer had just been forced to make a hasty round-trip from Camp Two to Base Camp and back to help his good friend Kruse after he had came down with what appeared to be a relapse of HACE*." (192) *(High Altitude Cerebral Edema)

While they are all enduring the hardships of the climb, they are faced with having to go back and forth to make sure everyone is safe and on the same climbing schedule. Being sick as a dog is not even an unusual feeling when climbing Mt. Everest, which may be why it is one of the toughest things to do on this earth. Sickness/Illness is a ket symbol that I found throughout this third section. With a majority of the team feeling somewhat ill and many members having to stay behind, the treck up becomes even harder as the number deplete and the group feels weaker as a whole. One of the main questions that I can pull from this section is the simple one, why? Why would you put your life in danger and keep going on if you are ill? Why would they ignore the signs of an approaching storm? Why were they all so stubborn? The first two are legitimate and the last one is just my opinionated question. You have to be a pretty stubborn person to do anything just for the rush to be at the top, but maybe that is why they are there and I am here sitting at my desk writing about them.

IRP Post 3 - Link

How To: Climb Mount Everest

This link will show you just how painful and exhausting climbing the highest mountain in the world can be. In chapter 9 Krakauer became too cold to climb any further, at least for a little while. He had underdressed because he had accounted for more solar radiation. It simply amazes me how when you are under extreme conditions and circumstances, the slightest mistake or miscalculation can be the difference between life and death. Fortunately he was fine and recovered but the consequences could have been devastating.