Monday, March 28, 2011

Into Thin Air (pgs.235-254)

The chapter turns into the story of Hall and Fischer. Hansen becomes sick later on and is feeling so nautious that he is unable to descend. Hall will not descend without him even though the radio stations are begging to leave Hall behind to save his own life. They try to convince him to come down by stating that Hall is in the tent all safe and sound. Even though they try to convince him, Hall and Hansen spend the night on an extremely high altitude which leads to being very dangerous. Hansen eventually dies next to Hall, so Hall decides to go on and tells the that he is moving and descending and think that he might make it. However, Rob Hall has not moved a bit and was hallucinating the whole time. He has just spent even longer near the summit of Everest with less oxygen. Three indian climbers reached the top on the tibetan side after Hansen, but this is not the actual summit. Some sherpas and japanese climbers find some of the Indian climbers in the snow, but they ignorantly do not help them as they would like to reach the top. It is unlikely that any of these climbers encountered Hall and Hansen on their descent.
These chapters become really intense as death occurs and the weather conditions worsen. Hansen is dead and Harris is probably dead while Hall's death is being foreshadowed. The extreme conditions of Everest are being proven and it is showing the struggle these various types of climbers are having for their lives and hopefully most of them will be safe from these horrifying conditions.

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