I had heard about this book a long time ago, but finally got around to reading/listening to it a couple of months ago. The first thing you notice is that the author is the same person reading it, so it gives you a sense of feeling more involved. The author’s voice is very, how shall I say, “sad.” It’s almost as if you spend the first part of the book waiting for something bad to happen, and only after a few chapters do you get used to his voice as a normal narrator.

This book is about a Mount Everest ascent that went wrong, costing the lives of numerous people. The main character, Jon, grew up as a mountain hiker, but eventually settled down as a writer for Outdoor magazine. He eventually got the chance to scale Mount Everest on Outdoor Magazine’s dime, so he was able to finally try to realize his dream. He starts off the book explaining the history of Mount Everest and who first scaled it, while also explaining its lure and danger. As I mentioned, after hearing all of this, along with the author’s voice, you just expect something bad to happen. Anyways, he finally gets out there and begins the long ascent up with one of the most famed hikers in the world, Rob Hall, leading him and his group. It is amazing all the things that have to go into scaling this mountain, and how they would literally have to “train” on the way up…going up a few thousand feet, then coming back down to spend the night. They would stay at different base camps along the way so their lungs could acclimatize to the thin oxygen, as well as get them used to the cold and help determine who were the stronger climbers, and those who would need help higher up on the mountain.

As boring as this may all sound, the author did a good job of keeping it interesting by doing a lot of character development. It actually was difficult to try and figure out who was who for awhile, but in the end you knew everyone’s name, their history, their flaws, their desires…everything. I believe this is what made the book all the more impactful as you come to hear the end of the story when a blizzard catches many of the hikers on the same day as they reach the top, and eventually trapping them up there. I’m not sure how the author did it, but he was able to detail almost everything that went on with all the hikers in a very good timeline. He would give one view point from one of the hikers he interviewed after the fact, but then completely contradict with another hiker’s viewpoint…so you could almost understand how crazy things were up there and how panicky things were.

The craziest story of them all is about a large Texan man, whom they thought had frozen to death, so they left him and another hiker on the mountain since they couldn’t bring them down to the safer base camp. Come to find out, a few hours later, this Texan man comes stumbling into camp, frostbitten and somewhat bewildered saying he didn’t remember seeing them earlier, but that a light just clicked on in his head, and he decided he wasn’t ready to die, so he got up and walked down the mountain in near blindness b/c of the blizzard. Anyways, despite everyone being surprised that he made it down, they didn’t think he would make it through the night. The following morning, as the remaining hikers were getting ready to go further down the mountain the main base camp, they basically forgot about the Texan. The author, Jon, decided to go check on him just in case, and sure enough he was still alive and was pissed off! He had been cursing and yelling all night b/c his tent had broken in the high winds, and the tarp kept smothering his face and suffocating him, but since he was so frostbitten, he couldn’t move, and basically had to struggle for his life the whole night. Due to the high winds, none of the other hikers heard his screams. You feel sorry for the guy, but you are laughing the whole time thinking what this big Texan is going through and how he is now just pissed off b/c everyone keeps leaving him for dead. He eventually did make it and get air lifted down the mountain by helicopter, so all ended well for him.

In the end, eight hikers were killed on the mountain, and although most people would like to blame a single decision, the author is very good about pointing out that it was the result of a cumulative number of small bad decisions that mounted up to cause such a disaster. The book is very good, albeit humbling, and I’d recommend it to most.