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1、EXTRACTS FROM INTO THIN AIR JON KRAKAUER （1997）Background to the 1996 Everest ExpeditionIn the early 1990s Rob Hall made a considerable name for himself in the mountaineering fraternity by summitting the highest mountains on each of the seven continents in only seven months.In an attempt to capitali

2、se on this and generate long term prospects in professional climbing, he and a partner established a company called Adventure Consultants. This company would specialise in high altitude guiding taking paying clients up and back down the seven-summits. Convinced that there would be enough potential c

3、lients with ample cash, but insufficient experience, Adventure Consultants was born.About the same time, a number of other climbers had similar ideas. Several companies specialising in high altitude guiding were launched. Amongst these was Mountain Madness, headed by Scott Fischer. In 1994 Fischer a

4、scended Everest without supplemental oxygen, and a couple of years later he led a high profile ascent of Kilimanjaro that netted half a million dollars for the charity CARE.Most of the companies in the high-altitude guiding market were only barely making a profit. In 1995 Fischer took home only abou

5、t $12,000. Future profitability depended on the ability to attract high profile clients, who would spend large amounts to join an expedition, and then to get them safely up and down the mountain.With both Hall and Fischer mounting expeditions to Everest in the spring of 1996, the scene was set for s

6、ome friendly competition between the two. Jon Krakauer, a journalist and experienced mountain climber approached both organisations to discuss joining their teams as a client. In return for a discount, he would write a number of high profile articles in Outside Magazine a publication widely read by

7、climbing enthusiasts in North America. He eventually decided to climb with Rob Hall and Adventure Consultants.On May 9th 1996, five expeditions launched an assault on the summit of Mount Everest. The conditions seemed perfect. Twenty-four hours later one climber had died and 23 other men and women w

8、ere caught in a desperate struggle for their lives as they battled against a ferocious storm that threatened to tear them from the mountain. In all eight climbers died that day in the worst tragedy Everest has ever seen.Jon Krakauer, an accomplished climber, joined a commercial expenditure run by gu

9、ides for paying clients, many of whom had little or no climbing experience. In Into Thin Air he gives a thorough and chilling account of the ill-fated climb and reveals the complex web of decisions and circumstances that left a group of amateurs fighting for their lives in the thin air and sub-zero

10、cold above 26,000 feet a place climbers call The Death Zone. Into Thin Air reveals the hard realities of mountaineering and echoes with the frantic calls of climbers lost high on the mountain and way beyond help.The following extracts are taken from the book Krakauer eventually wrote about the exped

11、ition, entitled Into thin Air.Team On the morning of March 31, two days after arriving in Kathmandu the assembled members of the 1996 Adventure Consultants Everest Expedition crossed the tarmac of Tribhuvan International Airport and climbed aboard a Russian-built Mi-17 helicopter operated by Asian A

12、irlines. A dented relic of the Afghan war, it was as big as a school bus, seated twenty-six passengers, and looked like it had been riveted together in somebodys backyard. The flight engineer latched the door and handed out wads of cotton to stuff in our ears, and the behemoth chopper lumbered into

13、the air with a head-splitting roar. The floor was piled high with duffels, backpacks, and cardboard boxes. Jammed into jump seats around the perimeter of the aircraft was the human cargo, facing inward, knees wedged against chests. The deafening whine of the turbines made conversation out of the que

14、stion. It wasnt a comfortable ride, but nobody complained.Glancing around the helicopters capacious interior, I tried to fix the names of my team-mates in my memory. In addition to guides Rob Hall and Andy Harris there was Helen Wilton, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of four, who was returning for he

15、r third season as Base Camp Manager. Caroline Mackenzie an accomplished climber and physician in her late twenties was the expedition doctor and, like Helen, would be going no higher than Base Camp. Lou Kasischke, a gentlemanly lawyer Id met at the airport, had climbed six of the Seven Summits as ha

16、d Yasuko Namba, forty-seven, a taciturn personnel director who worked at the Tokyo branch of Federal Express. Beck Weathers, forty-nine, was a garrulous pathologist from Dallas. Stuart Hutchinson, thirty-four, attired in a Ren and Stimpy T-shirt, was a cerebral, somewhat wonkish Canadian cardiologis

17、t on leave from a research fellowship. John Taske, at fifty-six the oldest member of our group, was an anaesthesiologist from Brisbane whod taken up climbing after retiring from the Australian army. Frank Fischbeck, fifty-three, a dapper genteel publisher from Hong Kong, had attempted Everest three

18、times with one of Halls competitors; in 1994 hed gotten all the way to the South Summit, just 300 vertical feet below the top. Doug Hansen, forty-six, was an American postal worker whod gone to Everest with Hall in 1995 and, like Fischbeck, had reached the South Summit before turning back.I wasnt su

19、re what to make of my fellow clients. In outlook and experience they were nothing like the hard-core climbers with whom I usually went into the mountains. But they seemed like nice, decent folks, and there wasnt a certifiable asshole in the entire group at least not one who was showing his true colo

20、rs at this early stage of the proceedings. For the most part I attributed my growing unease to the fact that Id never climbed as a member of such a large group a group of complete strangers, no less. Aside from one Alaska trip Id done twenty-one years earlier, all my previous expeditions had been un

21、dertaken with one or two trusted friends, or alone.In climbing, having confidence in your partners is no small concern. One climbers actions can affect the welfare of the entire team.The consequences of a poorly tied knot, a stumble, a dislodged rock, or some other careless deed are as likely to be

22、felt by the perpetrators colleagues as the perpetrator. Hence its not surprising that climbers are typically wary of joining forces with those who bona fides are unknown to them.But trust in ones partners is a luxury denied those who sign on as clients on a guided ascent; one must put ones faith in

23、the guide instead. As the helicopter droned toward Lukla, I suspected that each of my teammates hoped as fervently as I that Hall had been careful to weed out clients of dubious ability, and would have the means to protect each of us from one anothers shortcomings.Once the team landed at the Nepales

24、e village where the hike to Base Camp would begin, they met their team of Sherpas. Sherpas remain an enigma to most foreigners, who tend to regard them through a romantic screen. People unfamiliar with the demography of the Himalaya often assume that all Nepalese are Sherpas, when in fact there are

25、no more than 20,000 Sherpas in all of Nepal, a nation the size of North Carolina that has some 20 million residents and more than fifty distinct ethnic groups. Sherpas are a mountain people, devoutly Buddhist, whose forebears migrated south from Tibet four or five centuries ago. There are Sherpa vil

26、lages scattered throughout the Himalaya of eastern Nepal, and sizeable Sherpa communities can be found in Sikkim and Darjeeling, India, but the heart of Sherpa country is the Kumbu, a handful of valleys draining the southern slopes of Mount Everest a small, astonishingly rugged region completely dev

27、oid of roads, cars, or wheeled vehicles of any kind.For better and worse, over the past two decades the economy and culture of the Khumbu has become increasingly and irrevocably tied to the seasonal influx of trekkers and climbers, some 15,000 of whom visit the region annually. Sherpas who learn tec

28、hnical climbing skills and work high on the peaks especially those who have summitted Everest enjoy great esteem in their communities. Those who become climbing stars, alas, also stand a fair chance of losing their lives: ever since 1922, when seven Sherpas were killed in an avalanche during the sec

29、ond British expedition, a disproportionate number of Sherpas have died on Everest fifty-three all told. Indeed, they account for more than a third of all Everest fatalities.Despite the hazards, there is stiff competition among Sherpas for the twelve to eighteen staff positions on the typical Everest

30、 expedition. The most sought-after jobs are the half dozen openings for skilled climbing Sherpas, who can expect to earn $1,400 to $2,500 for two months of hazardous work attractive pay in a nation mired in grinding poverty and with an annual per capita income of around $160.Rob was always especiall

31、y concerned about the welfare of the Sherpas who worked for him. Before our group departed Kathmandu, he had sat all of us down and given us an uncommonly stern lecture about the need to show our Sherpa staff gratitude and proper respect. “The Sherpas weve hired are the best in the business,” he tol

32、d us. “They work incredibly hard for not very much money by Western standards. I want you all to remember we would have absolutely no chance of getting to the summit of Everest without the support of our Sherpas.”In a subsequent conversation, Rob confessed that in past years hed been critical of some expedition leaders for being careless with their Sherpa staff. In 1995 a young Sherpa had died on Everest; Hall speculated that the accident might have occurred because the Sherpa had been “allowed to climb high on the mountain without proper traini