Free Essays on Into Thin Air

A FEW years ago, after reading Jon Krakauer's horrifying account of the 1996 expeditions to Everest (Into Thin Air) in which 11 climbers died (nine on a single night) due to a combination of bad luck, bad weather and inexperience, I got a bit put off by this mountain climbing business. To "prove" themselves, people had begun paying vast sums of money to be literally pushed or carried up the great mountain, at great risk not only to themselves, but to others as well, just so that later, they could boast that they had "conquered Everest". Right at the beginning of this book, Bear Grylls, at 23, the youngest Briton to have made it to the summit and back (which is what this book is about), admits: I didn't conquer Everest - Everest allowed me to crawl up one side and stay on the peak for a few minutes. This humility stays with the book throughout and is all the more refreshing as Grylls is at an age at which most young men swagger around being excessively macho and gung-ho. And Grylls had more reason than most to swagger. Two years before making his attempt, while serving with the British army, he broke his back in a freefall when his parachute failed to open during a jump. You might think that recovering from a broken back is adventure enough for a lifetime - but there is that dreadful demon in the human spirit, which awakens at such times and demands its pound of flesh. You have to do more - much more than merely recover and be normal. And you will find no peace until you do so. For Bear Grylls, always an avid climber, that meant an attempt on Everest - a mountain that has fascinated countless and drawn hundreds to its icy slopes. (The mountain claims one life for every six successful summit attempts.) This book recounts that story: from the run-around for sponsors, the hard training involved, the formation of the team, the wait at base camp and the attempt itself. What comes through clearly is how mountaineering cuts out all the ... Free Essays on Into Thin Air Free Essays on Into Thin Air A FEW years ago, after reading Jon Krakauer's horrifying account of the 1996 expeditions to Everest (Into Thin Air) in which 11 climbers died (nine on a single night) due to a combination of bad luck, bad weather and inexperience, I got a bit put off by this mountain climbing business. To "prove" themselves, people had begun paying vast sums of money to be literally pushed or carried up the great mountain, at great risk not only to themselves, but to others as well, just so that later, they could boast that they had "conquered Everest". Right at the beginning of this book, Bear Grylls, at 23, the youngest Briton to have made it to the summit and back (which is what this book is about), admits: I didn't conquer Everest - Everest allowed me to crawl up one side and stay on the peak for a few minutes. This humility stays with the book throughout and is all the more refreshing as Grylls is at an age at which most young men swagger around being excessively macho and gung-ho. And Grylls had more reason than most to swagger. Two years before making his attempt, while serving with the British army, he broke his back in a freefall when his parachute failed to open during a jump. You might think that recovering from a broken back is adventure enough for a lifetime - but there is that dreadful demon in the human spirit, which awakens at such times and demands its pound of flesh. You have to do more - much more than merely recover and be normal. And you will find no peace until you do so. For Bear Grylls, always an avid climber, that meant an attempt on Everest - a mountain that has fascinated countless and drawn hundreds to its icy slopes. (The mountain claims one life for every six successful summit attempts.) This book recounts that story: from the run-around for sponsors, the hard training involved, the formation of the team, the wait at base camp and the attempt itself. What comes through clearly is how mountaineering cuts out all the ... Free Essays on Into Thin Air Into Thin Air is without a doubt a unique and outstanding novel that grips the reader’s interest and holds onto it until the very last paragraph. What makes it so unique is the fact that the story is told in the first person by one of the few survivors of the deadly climb. Each tragic episode is described in grotesque detail which is clear right from the beginning. The first chapter of the book catapults the reader to the summit of Mt. Everest, moments before the tragic chain of events that made up the disaster begin. The narrative hook is clear within the first couple of paragraphs. The narrator reaches the summit and then shortly after begins his decent where he suffers from a great loss of oxygen. He then looks down the side of the mountain to see a deadly storm building. The first chapter ends with the statement that the storm ahead â€Å"by the end of the day, every minute will count.† There after the author spends time educating the reader of the background of the mountain and events leading up to what happened in the first chapter. Krakauer does a good job of explaining how the highest point on earth was discovered with a short history lesson on Everest. Krakauer writes of the many expeditions that scaled Everest and how over the years the attempts were becoming more for the wealthy egotistical extremists who were in it for the publicity rather than those mountaineers who were in it for the love of the sport. It is this fact that is the reason for the author to join a team to climb Everest. He writes for Outsider magazine and was offered a cheap price to achieve his life goal in return for substantial advertisement in the magazine. Krakauer retells his Everest account in a way that even a person who knows nothing about climbing could understand and follow the story line. He explains the long and detailed process a climber must go through to be able to withstand the scarce oxygen levels. The less wildly known te...