Sunday, March 13, 2011

Into Thin Air (pg. 91-124_

Krakauer starts to mention all the inexperienced climbers climbing on the mountain. He mentions the story of a man who fasted and believed in God to climb the mountain, but people on another expedition had found his corpse. Another story tells of a man who was not registered and just convinced Sherpas into thinking he had a permit but he made it to 22000 feet and turned back. Woodwall was a British man that convinced a team of South Africans that he was South African. He was going to climb the mountain leading them and some people had quit because of his attitude. People were climbing on his expedition without a permit and he was getting in multitudes of trouble after the expedition had finally ended. They decide to climb the moutain and take more rest at the camps they are going to reach. While they are climbing, Krakauer is exposed to a few dead bodies on the way. The key part I thought was scary was the way of one of the sherpas, Ngawang. He climbs the moutain although he is feeling nautions and despite the fact that the doctors instructing him to descend. Although they said that, he only takes supplemental oxygen and medicaitons instead, but his symptoms become worse. The doctors diagnose him with HAPE and only solution is to descend as quickly as possible, so they try to but he keeps getting worse even with CPR and the oxygen mask. They eventually take him to the hospital where he dies a slow death. Also, there is a woman climber named Sandy who is attempting to climb Everest for publicity, but there has been a woman who has defeated her dream of being the first woman climber to reach the seven summits.

My reflection of this chapter was that it was quite scary. It has frightened me to even think about climbing this terrrible mountain and I can't believe why people could take such a risk. I am now thoroughly  convinced that I would never in my life climb Mount Everest.

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