I'm reading the book, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer; it's a personal account of the Mt. Everest Disaster in 1996. Before starting to read this book, I had no clue what so ever that there was such a thing as the Mt. Everest Disaster, let alone knowing the basic idea of what happened. So I'm assuming that right now, you're in the same boat I used to be in. Basically in 1996, there were eight people that died in one “trip” during a blizzard and fifteen over the course of the year, the most ever.
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| Mt. Everest |
So far throughout the story, Jon Krakauer will give little bits of information of what happened during the blizzard but then he goes back to telling the story of how he arrived at Mt. Everest. It drives me crazy because I know eight people died and Jon Krakauer happens to be one of the few to survive but I NEED to know the whole story! How did those people die? What exactly happened? Did any of them risk their lives in order to save Jon or any of the other survivors?
Recently Jon Krakauer was talking about how he felt left out, he didn't fit in with the rest of the climbers in his group. They all had plenty of extra money to spare and he was barely making it by. He felt like these people were nothing like him and they had nothing in common besides the fact they were climbing Mt. Everest together. I think he’s going to end up really enjoying spending time with these other people and it’ll be really emotional when some of them die, (because I know they don’t all survive.) I feel like I can relate (in a way) to the situation he’s in, I've gone to a summer camp every year for seven years and the personalities of the people I’m living with for a week differ dramatically. I remember when I was younger I completely changed the way I typically acted in order to feel like I belonged with these other girls. I realize now that was silly, I should be whoever I want to be and not care if those other girls think I'm crazy for dressing in ridiculous outfits for Wacky Wednesday. But yet, sometimes I still find myself in that situation, changing little things about the way I act in order to fit in, so I won't feel so left out. Jon, in Into Thin Air, didn't do this, he stuck to who he was, at least so far.
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| Jon Krakauer climbing Everest |
When I was younger (like fifth grade), I always dreamed of climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. I thought it would be the coolest thing in the whole entire world, I mean you're basically on top of the world. To me, it was climbing Mt. Everest or going to the moon and we both know going to the moon isn't very likely. I remember reading an article about people that had climbed the Seven Summits (the tallest mountain on each continent), not many people can say they have done that and I wanted to be one of them. I eventually began to learn that it's a tremendous difficulty to climb Mt. Everest and I didn't really think about it that much. Once I started reading Into Thin Air, that childhood dream started coming back, but now there are so many more factors that play a role in the difficulty of climbing Everest. I now know about the political debates and the commercializing of Mt. Everest, how much it costs to climb Mt. Everest (Lots of $$$$$$) and even so that doesn’t guarantee you a spot at the summit. Maybe one day I’ll take the adventure of climbing to the top of the world.
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| This guy for the win on coolest selfie EVER! |
* You know what I realized it's Mt. Everest and it has the word EVER in it cause the mountain goes on forEVER! *Mind blown*
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