Name:______
Into Thin Air: Introduction through Chapter 3
Questions appear in the approximate order that the answers appear in the book.
1. What is the final death toll during Krakauer’s Everest trip? Why do you think Krakauer begins the book with the results of the climb?
(Introduction, p. xv) 12 climbers died in the 1996 Everest climbing season—the highest annual death toll yet on the world’s tallest mountain. The death count the following year almost matched: 11.
2. Why is it hard for climbers to be accurate about facts when climbing?
(Introduction, p xvi) Their memories are distorted by exhaustion, oxygen depletion (hypoxia), and shock.
3. What questions does Krakauer hope this book will answer?
Why did veteran guides ignore the signs of bad weather and push their clients to the top, knowing their clients were amateurs who had paid a great deal of money for the possibility of summiting the world’s tallest mountain?
4. Give two alternate names for Mt. Everest and their meanings.
In Tibetan, “Jomolungma/Chomolungma,” or “goddess mother of the world”; in Nepali, “Deva-dhunga, or ‘Seat of God.” In recent years, another Nepali name has found favor: “Sagarmatha,” or “goddess of the sky” (15-16).
5. Who was George Mallory?
George Mallory was a British climber who made three attempts to summit Everest in the 1920s. In his last attempt in 1924, he and his partner Sandy Irvine ascended and, according to an eyewitness peering through a telescope, were nearing the summit. However, they never returned, and whether they succeeded is still a mystery. Mallory’s body was discovered on the mountain in 1999.
6. Who are Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay?
They are the first to summit Everest in 1953. Hillary was a New Zealand beekeeper; Norgay a Sherpa who had failed in six previous Everest attempts.
7. Why does Krakauer want to climb Everest?
“Boyhood dreams die hard,” Krakauer writes (28). Although he had done some difficult climbs until now, he had never been higher than 17,200 feet, which is lower than Everest base camp. The legendary challenge of Everest is a strong lure.
8. On page 35, what does Krakauer mean when he says that Everest climbers must “up the ante?”
“The next climb has to be harder and more spectacular than the last.”
(In recent years, this trend has resulted in the first blind person to summit in 2001; the first double amputee in 2006, and the youngest, a 13–year-old boy, in 2010.)
9. Give some details on these characters: Rob Hall, Andy Harris, Yasuko Namba, Doug Hansen, and Beck Weathers.
Rob Hall: a respected New Zealand climber who had led previous successful expeditions. Known for being cautious and successful; from 1990-95, he led 39 climbers to the top of Everest. He charged $65,000 apiece for the chance to summit (37). Hall was also a high school dropout (34).
Andy Harris: a New Zealand guide on Rob Hall’s team (8).
Yasuko Namba: Namba, 47, was a female Japanese climber, “forty minutes away from becoming the oldest woman to climb Everest and the second Japanese woman to reach the highest point on each continent, the so-called Seven Summits” (10).
Doug Hansen: “Doug Hansen, forty-six, was an American postal worker who’d gone to Everest with Hall in 1995 and . . . had reached the South Summit before turning back” (39).
Beck Weathers: “. . . forty-nine, a garrulous pathologist from Dallas” (39). Krakauer doesn’t care much for Weathers at first; later, Weathers reveals he doesn’t like that Krakauer, as a reporter, might expose the climbers’ faults and make them look bad. Weathers will later lose most of an arm, a hand, and parts of his face to frostbite.
10. On page 40, Krakauer says that climbers must now shift their trust from their climbing companions to their guides. Why is this change significant?
In the past, climbers chose cohorts skilled in climbing, knowing they could rely on them to be cautious for the sake of everyone’s welfare. For those who are clients who pay a guide, they must put all their trust in the guide—a huge burden for the guide—knowing they cannot depend on their fellow clients for help in emergencies.
Name: ______
Into Thin Air, Ch. 4-6
Questions appear in the approximate order that the answers appear in the book.
Chapter 4
1. Give three characteristics of the Sherpas.
Sherpas are an ethnic group living in the Himalayan Mountains who rely on subsistence farming. Most are devout Tibetan Buddhists whose forebears likely came from Tibet 500 years ago. They are “hardworking, affable, and intelligent.” Because they live at high altitude, they are less prone to altitude-related illnesses. They often serve as porters on climbing expeditions since they are capable of bearing heavy loads on their backs.
2. What percentage of Sherpas has died on Everest?
Roughly 33% of Everest fatalities are Sherpas. Because they often precede the climbers to set ropes, ladders, and establish camps, they are placed at much greater risk.
3. Who is the Rimpoche? Why is he important to the climbers?
The Rimpoche is “the head lama of all Nepal”—a Tibetan Buddhist religious leader at the Tengboche Monastery, where the climbers stop for his blessing for a safe and successful Everest climb.
4. Name two negative results on the environment cause by the increase in trekkers and climbers in Nepal.
Too many visitors come to the region, resulting in latrines overflowing with human waste as well as dung on the ground. Deforestation has resulted from so many visitors needing firewood for cooking and warmth. Deforestation has also resulted in erosion.
5. Briefly describe Tenzing’s accident.
He was on a scouting trip, walking single file behind four other Sherpas, but they weren’t linked with a rope. Although he was careful to step where they had, he broke through a thin layer of snow and fell into a 150-foot deep crevasse. The four other Sherpas succeeded in getting him out, but Tenzing had a broken femur.
Chapter 5
6. What is one strategy that has helped clean Everest somewhat?
If expeditions clean up after themselves and descend from the mountain with their trash and waste, they will receive a $2,000 rebate. If now, then each expedition forfeits $4,000.
7. Consider the descriptions of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer that begin on page 68. Which one would you trust to take you to the summit? Why? Explain why you didn’t choose the other one.
Scott Fischer: Climber and guide known for his strength and occasional recklessness. Gregarious and energetic. Smoked lots of marijuana, although not while climbing, and was also a heavy drinker. Fischer felt he did not have the recognition he deserved for climbing. Fischer once fell 100 feet in an ice climbing competition. When his ice axe dug a dime-width hole through his leg, he kept climbing. He attempted Everest four times and reached the top once, although not in the role of a guide. In 1996, he was leading his first commercial expedition to Everest. He also climbed Everest successfully in 1994 without bottled oxygen. Took part in a rescue of climber Gary Ball on K2, the world’s second highest and most dangerous mountain.
Rob Hall: Summitted 7 Sisters, the 7 highest mountains on each of the seven continents, so he has climbed in many environments. Hall also summitted Everest more times than Fischer and was known for his caution: he always stuck to his self-imposed 2 p.m. turn-around time. Even rival expedition leaders sought his advice, which he gave freely. However, his group partied at Base Camp the night before they planned to summit—a bad idea because the effects of alcohol are intensified at altitude.
Ed Viesturs: Known for his extreme strength and endurance, he summitted Everest three times before ’96, and as of 2008, he successfully reached the peak four times out of ten attempts. He survived the 1996 disaster by not having the IMAX team ascend even though all the other expeditions on the mountain did. In fact, he halted the $5.5 million IMAX project to dedicate the team’s resources to the rescue effort, risking the lives of his team and the money of his investors. However, once the IMAX team has another chance at the summit, Viesturs ascends without oxygen, ahead of Segarra and Norgay, who haven’t climbed Everest before.
8. At Base Camp, there is 1/3 the amount of oxygen that there is at sea level. At the top of Everest, that level drops to 1/2 the amount at sea level.
Chapter 6
9. What is a crampon?
A metal device that connects to the boots to increase your grip in snow and ice.
10. Name two dangerous ice formations.
Seracs are large blocks of ice found in Khumbu Glacier. Because glaciers move, a serac could easily fall on climbers. Crevasses are vertical fissures in the ice that climbers can fall into.
Name: ______
Into Thin Air: Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 7
1. What was Maurice Wilson’s plan to ascend Everest? How did it turn out?
In 1933, he wanted to crash a plane on Everest’s Tibet side and climb to the top from there. Because the Nepalese government refused to grant him permission to fly in their airspace, Wilson sold his plane, and in 1934 trekked 300 miles to the base of Everest, ascended but lost his way. He reached 22, 700 feet. His body was discovered there a year later.
2. Whom did Krakauer see as the strongest guided climber on Everest in 1996? Why?
Pete Schoening, on an expedition to K2 in 1953, achieved legendary status through a heroic belay. Schoening was roped to five climbers and in the one hand he held an incapacitated climber that the team was trying to move to safety. When one of the climbers slipped, Schoening managed to hold onto the injured climber with one hand and dig his ice axe into the side of the mountain to prevent all of them from falling to their deaths.
3. What heroic act did Conrad Anker and Alex Lowe perform?
The men stopped their ascent of Mt. McKinley to rescue Taiwanese climbers trapped in a storm. They dragged each climber down from 19,400 feet to 17,200 feet. From that point a helicopter evacuated them. Anker and Lowe sacrificed their own summit bid for the rescue effort.
4. Which of the 1996 expeditions seems least capable to you? Why?
Possibilities:
Rob Hall’s team: None of Hall’s clients on the 1996 team had summitted an 8,000-meter peak before.
The Taiwanese team: “Makalu” Gau, the leader, was one of the climbers rescued on McKinley by Anker and Lowe. Others on Everest feared the Taiwanese would run into trouble again and need to be bailed out by other expeditions, wasting their time, resources, and potentially endangering other climbers.
The South African Team: Team leader Ian Woodall had boasted of extensive Himalayan experience, when in fact he had previously been a client on two failed expeditions to Island Peak and Annapurna. Three climbers resigned a few weeks into the expedition, as did the team doctor, who claimed Woodall was a “control freak.” Later it is revealed that Woodall deliberately omitted the team’s remaining black member from the climbing permit. Although Woodall received financial backing from a South African newspaper, he expelled a reporter and photographer from the expedition despite a contractual agreement allowing them to accompany the team.
The Non-Commercial Expeditions: Because they have the least amount of money, they can’t afford the guides and equipment needed.
Chapter 8
5. How and why did Krakauer’s attitude about encountering dead climbers change?
The first body shocked him for several hours; the next he encountered generated only brief shock. He reports that most climbers seemed to pretend the bodies weren’t real; otherwise, they would have to acknowledge the huge risks they were about to undertake.
6. How are the following people responsible in some way for Ngawang Topche’s death? Have a good argument among yourselves. Answer with complete sentences, and try to represent all perspectives from your group. Use the back of the paper if necessary.
a. Ngawang Topche: He felt weak, groggy, and short of breath for two days and didn’t tell Scott Fischer. Once he did tell him, Fischer told him to descend immediately, but instead Ngawang ascended to Camp Two. Perhaps he had done so out of pride: Sherpas supposedly don’t get altitude sickness, and should word get out that he did, he would likely miss out on future jobs. Because Ngawang delayed revealing his condition, he contracted High Altitude Pulmonary Edema: his lungs filled with fluid, and he began coughing up pinkish, bloody froth. He refused treatment with a Gamow bag, insisting he was having stomach troubles instead of an altitude illness.
b. Ingrid Hunt: The team doctor waited too long to evacuate Ngawang, and the weather changed for the worse, so it was impossible to get a helicopter. She also had too much responsibility; in addition to being team doctor, she was to run Base Camp. Hunt was also a relatively young doctor with no experience in high-altitude medicine.
c. Scott Fischer:
Fischer wasn’t present to help Ngawang because he was bringing down Tim Madsen, another victim of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema. He was also responsible for hiring Hunt despite her lack of high-altitude experience. When Fischer left Hunt alone at Base Camp, the Sherpas did not see her as the boss and refused to follow her directives on Ngawang’s treatment.