Jon Krakauer
Aria Sottile

The noise is that accommodating and muffled sound of pages being compressed like many small sardines. With a broad and slow gesture, I place it on the shelf dedicated to the new "victims" I liked and that I will read again several times in the future. I mentally scroll through the well-written chapters by this American climber/journalist, and what remains are not the forest of names and places mentioned: too many, they will end up blending into a dense stew, I am sure of it. "Into Thin Air" isn't magnetic for the distinctiveness of the story narrated, which I would dare to call almost banal; a tragedy born of many small and avoidable mistakes. 

What shocks the reader are the concluding pages and the bitter and true reflection that unravels the problem with granitic hardness. Passages so rich that I felt the need to grab a highlighter and mark the book that still smells new. The fact is that on May 10, 1996, when 12 people lost their lives, it was not a day of extraordinarily prohibitive and unforeseeable conditions. There was a storm: true, but it is equally right to emphasize that as terrible as it was, such a display of human inferiority was typical and absolutely normal in the pre-monsoon season at over 8,000 meters altitude. They should not have been at the summit at 4 pm. There is the bitter sensation that all that dying was avoidable and not catalogable as adverse fate or the wrath of God.

TRIVIALIZATION OF THE "MOTHER GODDESS"

The conquest of the world's roof begins in the mid-1800s when the highest point on the planet is located. The name is immediately Westernized from the historic one of Chomolangma (Mother Goddess of the Universe) to Everest in honor of the British geographer. After three decades of romantic attempts, it falls to Edmund Hillary and the sherpa Tenzing to have the honor of reaching its summit in 1953. Since then, Everest has been vilified and trivialized precisely because, from a climbing point of view, it is not particularly complex. The K2, for example, is much more so, and due to this relative "ease," it has been sold to the highest bidder to pocket ever-increasing revenues from climbing rights, issued by Tibet in this sacred area. At first, they were more or less prepared romantic climbers, then formidable professionals helped by the indispensable porters. Only finally did the commercial expeditions arrive (the real subject of the book) of semi-laymen ready to issue mind-blowing checks to be able to say: I have really touched the sky. The "Everest" scalp becomes an obsession for some: a drug that shatters marriages and lives. 

An important goal should be the result of a long journey, whose pavement should consist of experience, effort, and above all, much, much time. However, contemporary society seems always so stingy with such ethereal matter, and with money tries to compensate for the shortcomings. Jon Krakauer, a former climber of decent level, has the opportunity, through the sponsorship of the newspaper for which he works, to climb Everest at 41 years old in 1996 by participating in a commercial expedition to describe the rapidly expanding phenomenon from the inside. The assault on the summit becomes, as mentioned, a calvary, and "Into Thin Air" discusses the questionable sense of all this. The book becomes a swipe against the absurd overcrowding in a place at the limits of human survival: where the air is three times thinner than metropolitan air and where the likelihood of pulmonary/cerebral edemas, hallucinations, and frostbite is very high. In the critical moments of the climb, the sacred and divine mountain is tragically described as a jam, a terrifying waltz of crampons and ropes on the Hillary Step. Thus, on those 12 vertical meters, three different expeditions tangle, in the rush to reach the summit just a hundred meters away. Vital hours must be awaited until it is finally one's turn. Time starts to slip away, and it would be wise to turn back. Damn conditionals...

THE NON-ACCEPTANCE OF LIMITS

"Thin Air" explains the non-acceptance of limits. By the guides who believe themselves, with their impressive resumes behind them, invincible and arrogant gods on earth, and by some clients not suited to challenge a mountain without the decisive support of sherpas, bottles, and guides. Climbers who, in the worst cases, can hardly put on crampons and have very little high-mountain experience (as in the case of Krakauer), and yet dive right in believing they pay the guides not so much to make the correct decisions in an environment where rationality is rare, but to be literally carried in extreme cases straight to the objective. In such a context, an unforeseen event, a delay in the ascent, an error in judgment, a jam, the sudden end of oxygen with consequent illness can mean death.
The fact is many would like to be champions of some sport, successful musicians, or singers, etc... but to do that you need something that cannot be purchased: talent and the perseverance of training. Paradoxically, conquering Everest for an ordinary person, endowed with good physical conditions, in contemporary times has a price that has nothing to do with sacrifice and talent: $65,000, in 1996. 

These 300 pages are the possible consequences. For the author, it would take little: not allowing climbing with oxygen cylinders because suddenly running out of them is fatal. The human body warns us of danger, of our limits, and the cylinders can prove to be a deadly trap in an area where rescue is almost impossible. Avoiding their use would leave Everest and all peaks above the so-called death zone only to those rare individuals capable of challenging it honestly, accepting the risks. It would prevent congestion, the unworthy pile of waste, and would give dignity to a mountain that has been squeezed to the marrow and trivialized. "Into Thin Air" is a strong book that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, hurts and strikes hard on these keys, on how all this could have been avoided and how this tragedy served no purpose. Sooner or later, it will happen again. Krakauer is convinced of it. 

The expedition leaders Rob Hall and Scott Fischer (who will pay with their lives) felt invincible and so good that they could succeed in bringing everyone to the top, caught up in internal competition to have leadership in the sector. However, it is evident that with "Into Thin Air," the author makes a j'accuse against the very existence of this market in general, not so much against his disappeared friends for whom he feels real despondency and compassion. Is this marketing fair? Should the rural population that has lived for centuries in harmony in this austere and magnetic land be condemned to become carriers for millionaires hungry for glory? For what happened in '96, he also blames himself and all the members of the various expeditions who, those days, suddenly faced with a chilling situation they were not prepared for, did not risk their lives for those more at risk but acted with common sense instead of seeking heroism. Jon will remain marked for the adventure lived, for the errors in judgment, for the terrible regrets that will follow, and for the disputes with the survivors in the coming years: a film already seen in the history of mountaineering.

The crux of the book is: let's learn to be aware of our limits. There's nothing to be ashamed of.