Into Thin Air
A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
by Jon Krakauer
The recap
In the spring of 1996, journalist and climber Jon Krakauer joined a commercial expedition to Mount Everest on assignment for Outside magazine, to report on the booming business of guiding paying clients to the top of the world. On May 10, as several teams pushed for the summit, a ferocious storm swept the upper mountain, and the day became one of the deadliest in Everest's history. Krakauer, who reached the top and made it back down, wrote this account in the aftermath, piecing events together from his own memory and interviews with other survivors. He explains how thin air clouds judgment at extreme altitude, examines the economics and egos of the guiding industry, and traces the small decisions that compound into catastrophe. It is also a raw piece of self-examination, shot through with grief and survivor's guilt. As tense as any thriller yet carefully reported, it remains a landmark of adventure nonfiction and a clear-eyed look at ambition and risk.
Why read it
For readers drawn to true survival stories and the psychology of risk, even if they have never set foot on a mountain.
Fun facts
- 01
The book grew out of Krakauer's article for Outside magazine, which had sent him to Everest to write about commercial guiding.
- 02
Eight climbers died on the mountain during the storm of May 10 to 11, 1996.
- 03
Into Thin Air was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
- 04
Russian guide Anatoli Boukreev, whose decisions Krakauer questioned, offered a rebuttal in his own book, The Climb, co-written with G. Weston DeWalt.
