1996 Everest Disaster

C

coolcrow

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Last year, I started getting interested in Mt. Everest when the show, Everest: Beyond the Limit, started on the Discovery channel. Now, I've watched both seasons, and I decided to read a little bit of literature on Everest. I started by reading, Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, which detailed the worst disaster in Everest's history. I found it to be a very interesting read and finished in only 2 days. When I researched the book more on the internet, I found two other novels about the disaster. One, which I am reading now, The Climb, by Anatoli Boukreev, chronicles the story from a climbing guide's view. Another, Left for Dead, by Beck Weathers, I have yet to read. I also saw the Imax movie filmed during 1996 on Everest, which I found to be somewhat interesting. I was wondering if anyone else had read any of these books? Or does anyone have any opinions about the disaster? Just looking for opinions since nobody else I know seems to even know what I'm talking about and I think the topic is worth discussing.
 
i read the krakauer and boukreev books.

i struggled through "the climb", i just found the style of writing to be far less engaging.

ive read "into thin air" twice, awesome book.
 
I agree that Boukreev's book is slightly boring, but I like the fact that you get the perspective from a different climbing team. I think that Boukreev was slightly criticized in Krakauer's book, and it seems like he tries to defend himself. I'm interested to read Weather's book to see what he thought of Boukreev.
 
I have found that 1996 was kind of a bad year in term of disasters and accidents in the mountains. A little off topic, but that was the year that Randy Morganson disspaeared in the High Serria. The book "The Last Season" chronicles Randys life and the mistery surrouding his disappereance. The writters style is similar to Krakauer's. As to Everest, it just goes to show you that a few bad decisions can lead to your own demise, as well as not listening to your experience and rules of travel.
 
yes, the perspective was what first drew me to his book.


but i suppose that is the difference between a professional writer relaying the experiences of others, and a climber relaying his own.

its been a while, but now that you mention it, i also recall boukreev not being portrayed in the most appealing fashion. but based on everything else i have seen regarding the incident, krakauer's book was pretty objective.
 
Ghost93 said:
I have found that 1996 was kind of a bad year in term of disasters and accidents in the mountains. A little off topic, but that was the year that Randy Morganson disspaeared in the High Serria. The book "The Last Season" chronicles Randys life and the mistery surrouding his disappereance. The writters style is similar to Krakauer's. As to Everest, it just goes to show you that a few bad decisions can lead to your own demise, as well as not listening to your experience and rules of travel.
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I'd definitely agree that a few bad decisions caused the disaster. From what I gather, the storm wasn't horrific, but all of the little mistakes the teams made created the major problems. If they would have turned back at the appointed time, or if Fischer would have been healthier, or the climbers would have been stronger, or radio communication would have been better, the whole disaster could have been avoided.
 
coolcrow said:
I'd definitely agree that a few bad decisions caused the disaster. From what I gather, the storm wasn't horrific, but all of the little mistakes the teams made created the major problems. If they would have turned back at the appointed time, or if Fischer would have been healthier, or the climbers would have been stronger, or radio communication would have been better, the whole disaster could have been avoided.
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Problem is you can only be so strong and radios will fail.
 
I found Boukreev to be more factual, Krakauer more emotional. Krakauer reads better, but I put more weight to the facts as Boukreev describes them.

Also worth reading is Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest, Beck Weathers' account of staggering back into camp, getting off the mountain--a part of the story the other accounts glossed over--and the recovery process.
 
I've read the Beck book, it's amazing story just in itself. Into thin air I liked as well.
 
I found that Krakauer tends to go off on small tangents that can sometimes make the story seem less powerful. Boukreev, just tells the story as it happened with nothing in between, which is probably more accurate, but boring. I've also read Krakauer's Into the Wild, which I hard a very hard time reading through. He put in so many stories about other people, that it was hard to stay with the story. I would like to see Sean Penn's movie though.
 
Sorry to bump an old thread but if you can catch the PBS episode of Frontline called "Storm Over Everest" it's worth watching. Frontline is usually fairly objective in their reporting.

Pretty interesting because they actually interview many of the survivors. In hindsight you can really see a few errors or problems where if one or two were avoided would have prevented the whole thing. But that is of course true of many things (accidents, bad investments, bad life choices, etc.).

From my armchair it really sounds like not conforming to the cut-off time was the thing that really started the mess because that's what got people stuck in the severe weather (which by 6PM had become a blizzard with 70MPH winds that buried ropes, diminished vision to a few feet, wind noise was so bad people had to yell at each other to be heard and it has been suggested that the weather caused oxygen levels to drop by 14%). That left guide Rob Hall trying to help postal worker Doug Hansen stuck near the summit and that caused guide Andy Harris to have to climb up with supplies to help them. The two guides died supposedly because Hansen didn't want to turn around (according to a sherpa) even though he was lagging far behind (they didn't reach the summit until after 3:45PM). That left the Adventure Consultants team with one guide. And the late return in general caused the mixed stragglers from Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness to be caught in the blizzard, get lost and finally have to stop at midnight only 200M from their camp (although they didn't know that). Four of that group (including the guides) later made it to Camp IV and it was Boukreev who went out into the blizzard at night twice to rescue three of the people stuck (he left Namba who seemed close to death and didn't see Beck). Given the fact they were 200M from safety one might guess that if they had headed back on time they probably would have made it.

It really sounds like the real problem might be the commercialization of the climbs. The extensive "support" allows climbers who probably aren't fully qualified/ready for such a climb attempt it and puts too many climbers on the mountain at the same time.

Just seeing the hands of the climbers who spent the entire night in the blizzard on that program is an eye opener.
 
If you can find a copy (out of print outside of nepal) read Tiger of the Snows Tenzing Norgays first book. Great book on the early attempts and the sherpa people.
 
I read "Into Thin Air" when I was 12, and "Left For Dead" when I was 14. I remember highly enjoying them both. In fact, "Into Thin Air" is still my favorite book.
 
I read Into Thin Air back in Feb. I found the book to be quite a good read, and most of the decisions made seemed to lead to all the deaths. I agree with rc's comments about the commercialization of summitting Everest, as it seems that the expedition leaders might have been a little more stringent on deadlines such as descent turnaround time, etc. Run as a business, the expedition groups seem to cater more to getting "clients" up to the summit. That's why it's admirable to see the decisions made by the leader in Everest: Beyond the Limit, where he turned people around to descend that were a stones-throw away from the summit. Granted, those people are clients too, but at least that leader made the hard decisions that could possibly save lives.

Krakauer definitely writes with emotion, and sometimes with a narrow look on events. I do think he had a legitimate criticism of Boukreev, however. Boukreev was a guide, I believe, and if IIRC, he summited without oxygen. While it is true that he saved people later on by retrieving them off the south col, he did not stay with others in his party after summitting and descended by himself. Who knows...perhaps some may have not died had he played things differently.

I have not read the other books mentioned earlier, but I did watch Frontline the other night. It was interesting to put the faces to the names, and hear the story from them in person. Did they include everyone from both parties? I didn't see any interviews from Krakauer. Perhaps they asked, and he declined.

Beck Weathers should have bought a lottery ticket, cause with the luck he had, he would have hit for sure.

Glenn
 
I've always been fascinated by mountaineering, even though the closest I ever got to it was a form of rock climbing called "bouldering" and even some "buildering" as we used to call it when I was in college. It just amazes me that people get within a hundred or two meters of the summit and must turn back or the people who are stranded by a storm a hundred or two meters from the camp and they can't make it. The severity of those conditions and the degree of effort to conquer them are nearly unimaginable to me.
 
(jeff) said:
I read "Into Thin Air" when I was 12, and "Left For Dead" when I was 14. I remember highly enjoying them both. In fact, "Into Thin Air" is still my favorite book.
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Add about 35 years to the ages and this would be my post also.
 
randomconsumer said:
Sorry to bump an old thread but if you can catch the PBS episode of Frontline called "Storm Over Everest" it's worth watching. Frontline is usually fairly objective in their reporting.

Pretty interesting because they actually interview many of the survivors. ................

Just seeing the hands of the climbers who spent the entire night in the blizzard on that program is an eye opener.
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I just watched it today and I think that you about covered it about right, rc. (It looks like you can still watch on line pbs.org.) The most striking thing for me was when the Chinese (Taiwan) man began gesticulating: no fingers. He was the most animated I thought and at the end he confesses his feelings about the climb. I won't mention in case anyone watches. Each of the members who tells a part of the story shows emotion/personality which is something one can't quite get from a book.

It is only possible to see the hands of a few other climbers because all of the shots are from the shoulders up, or do not include the hands; and at least one other is badly injured.

There is another climbing movie I liked about two men who climb in South America...can anyone help me out? there was something unconventional about the approach of the climb or the time of the year. This movie involved a higher degree of re-enactment than the Everest documentary but the climb was a life/death proposition.
 
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