Tragedies While Climbing Mount Everest Are Caused by Human Error

Here, it is highly recommended to to use supplemental oxygen at this altitude, because the less oxygen you have, the more your brain cells die off. This means that you do not think as well and you cannot perform your best, which could mean life or death in this situation. The climax of the novel is when the team reaches their goal of making their way to the summit on May 10, 1996. The guide, Rob Hall, told the team before the climb that they had to be at the summit no later than two o’clock, and if you are not there by then, they must turn back. Around two o’clock, a massive storm begins to close in. The team must make it down to the lower camos soon or else it will be almost impossible for any of them to get back alive. Some of the climbers have not made it to to summit yet and go against Rob Hall’s judgement, and go the rest of the way themselves. Unfortunately, Jon Krakauer , Rob Hall, and all the other climbers get caught up in the storm. Jon Krakauer by a miracle gets down to the lower level camps and he has been out of supplemental oxygen for a while now. He stumbles upon one of the climbers of his team. His name is Beck Weathers. Beck eventually gets to a camp and they finally get him to the doctors at the Base Camp. When he gets to the doctors, the doctors say that he has the worst frostbite that they have ever seen.

One very off-putting factor for climbing Mount Everest is the climb itself. This is because of all of the risks taken when doing so. All of the risks are very extreme and most can actually lead to death as many that have attempted making the treacherous journey up the mountain have not made it back down safely. This factor can become stuck in many people’s heads and change their minds about making the journey up this beautiful mountain completely. Although several see the travel up the mountain as dangerous and unpleasant, many also see it as the best part of the whole trip. This makes perfect sense seeing as during this climb you can experience some of the most beautiful scenery anyone would ever have the chance to see in their entire lives. The climb has been said to be beautiful and well worth all of the hardship of injury and pain. Overall the climb up the mountain can be seen as the whole reason not to climb Mount Everest or the very reason to do so, but either way the sights you can see are magnificent, or are they?

In order to continue climbing Everest, many aspects of climbing need to be improved before more people endanger their lives to try and reach the roof of the world. The guides have some areas that need the most reform. During the ascension of Everest the guides made a plethora mistakes that seemed insignificant but only aided in disaster. The guides first mistake is allowing “any bloody idiot [with enough determination] up” Everest (Krakauer 153). By allowing “any bloody idiot” with no climbing experience to try and climb the most challenging mountain in the world, the guides are almost inviting trouble. Having inexperienced climbers decreases the trust a climbing team has in one another, causing an individual approach to climbing the mountain and more reliance on the guides. While this approach appears fine, this fault is seen in addition to another in Scott Fischer’s expedition Mountain Madness. Due to the carefree manner in which the expedition was run, “clients [moved] up and down the mountain independently during the acclimation period, [Fischer] had to make a number of hurried, unplanned excursions between Base Camp and the upper camps when several clients experienced problems and needed to be escorted down,” (154). Two problems present in the Mountain Madness expedition were seen before the summit push: the allowance of inexperienced climbers and an unplanned climbing regime. A third problem that aided disaster was the difference in opinion in regards to the responsibilities of a guide on Everest. One guide “went down alone many hours ahead of the clients” and went “without supplemental oxygen” (318). These three major issues: allowing anyone up the mountain, not having a plan to climb Everest and differences in opinion. All contributed to the disaster on Everest in

As an experienced mountaineer, Krakauer’s childhood dream had been to climb Mount Everest. This lingering dream was triggered with a full blast when he accepted the offer of being on Rob Hall’s leaded expedition as a reporter for Outside magazine. Krakauer had to change his attitude from a free-willed climber to an obedient client on the team and was concerned about his other fellow clients when they were first acquainted. “ In outlook and experience they were nothing like the hard-core climbers with whom I usually went into the mountains”. (Krakauer 39) In previous years, Krakauer had always climbed alone or with some trusted friends. He came to realize that one must completely rely on the guide instead of other clients on a guided expedition. After meeting the other clients, Krakauer develops a sense of superiority as he is one of the most experienced climbers on the team. It shocked him when the author found out that clients Beck Weathers, Stuart Hutchinson, and Lou Kasischke never tried on their mountaineering boots beforehand and Hutchinson even failed to notice his crampons (steel spikes that are attached to the bottom of boots to help with ice climbing) did not fit his boots. As the expedition drags on, Krakauer became more acquainted with the rest of his team members and has a change in mindset. “I learned that between the demands of their families and their high-powered careers, few of my fellow clients had had the opportunity to go climbing more than once or twice in the previous year…. But maybe I’m just being a snob, I scolded myself.” Krakauer admits through this context that he is deeply concerned about his inexperienced teammates although he realized that it is not up to him to worry about such things. He came to realize that although many other clients were extremely unexperienced, their goal to summit the

Lack of psychological safety within the team members failed to fix cognitive bias of irrationality. If members developed trust within the team, cognitive bias could have been prevented or at least minimized. The truth that climbers might make irrational decisions and find it hard to turn back when they are so closed to the summit was obvious, but teammates seeing this problem did not speak up since they did not feel that their thoughts were welcome and felt uneasy. More cognitive biases could also been prevented to lessen the complex system of the expedition. Since climbing Mt. Everest is already a high risk venture, any additional problems such as irrational decisions can cause a crisis. Using the early sign of issues with Hall’s team’s progress, it was obvious that the probability of failing the expedition was high before the team even started. Hall could have used the issues as a sign of the complex systems that exist, and could have used this knowledge to prevent any irrational decisions. The complex systems and the lack of psychological safety also contributed to the tragedy. The team members failed to communicate and trust each other, which then added more problems to the complex systems. For instance, Boukreev’s could have spoken up to his team leader, Fischer, about his concerns regarding his team members lacking experience to begin with. By speaking up, he could have prevented more chain reaction due to lack of communications and feedback within the

In the book “Into thin air” by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer sought to report and write about his climb up mount everest. He knew it wouldn't be easy, but he did not and could not have predicted the barriers and conflicts that were inflicted upon him, by the mountain and it’s atmosphere. Due to these barriers and conflicts, it would be naive to say that the main conflict wasn’t man vs nature. Nevertheless, Krakauer had the worst experience of his life, climbing and fighting against the physical and mental effects of Mount Everest.

Mt. Everest’s summit has always seemed an unattainable goal for most people. The idea that most people have is that if I can climb Mt Everest, I can accomplish anything. To have the money and desire to try to attempt it is one thing, but being able to endure the punishment is quite another. Beck Weathers, one of the climbers on this particular expedition, had such severe frostbite that he had to have his right arm, nose and the fingers on his left hand amputated. Everyone on the expedition suffered the rigors of Everest. The two expert guides, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, lost their lives due to a violent storm that ripped through during their descent from the summit. Their impaired judgment also contributed to their demise. Everest is no respecter of persons. Mt Everest is the most respected mountain in the whole world and if

Before reading this book, I had already been aware of the countless dangers of Mt. Everest. Last summer I read a book about Mt. Everest much like this one in the state that both were spoken through personal accounts, and both used constant detail to express the horrible and painful experiences that both authors had to go through. This prior knowledge helped better my understanding of this book because I was aware of the common occurrences that can take place while climbing Mt. Everest, and the gruesome circumstances that go with it. During the eighth chapter, readers become aware of a horrible condition that a character is dealing with. “By the time he arrived at the tents late that afternoon Ngawang was delirious, stumbling like a drunk, and coughing up pink, blood-laced froth” (Krakauer 113).

Mount Everest is 29,092 feet tall. Imagine climbing this mountain with little to no experience. Would you survive? In the nonfiction novel Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer and his recruited crews try climbing this mountain. With many deaths along the way to the top, readers are quick to blame characters in the book. However, character stands out from the rest: Krakauer. In the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer is the most responsible for the other character’s deaths because he recruited and dragged along inexperienced mountain climbers, pushed them harder than they should’ve been pushed, and watched them suffer.

Krakauer is one of the many people that decided that Everest needed to be climbed. Krakauer couldn’t help but take the impossible mission.

Why is Mount Everest so dangerous? The people who want to climb Mount Everest are aware of the risk… But actually, the risk is part of the attraction for some people. Not everyone can manage the treacherous climb. In fact, some people pay with their lives for climbing Mount Everest. Everest is 29,035 feet from its base to its peak. The people who climb Everest are very skilled. People do not have the right to rescue services when they put themselves at risk because, they are making a life threatening risk to themselves and they are also making a risk to the people who are trying to save them.

Have you ever wanted to prove to everyone that you are a hard worker that is willing to give up everything to go on an adventure? If this is you than Everest is the perfect place for you. In the story, “ Into Thin Air,” by Jon Krakauer a true story is told of a dangerous voyage up and down Everest. The climb up was arduous and long according to Jon, but the climbers sacrificed everything to get to the top, which most of the climbers achieved. However, emotions shifted when a storm swooped in and killed many of the climbers that were stuck on the summit, around 12-19 in total.

Even though the climbers understood that climbing is no easy task to accomplish, they witnessed miracles that only humans can perform such as that of Beck Weathers still being alive after becoming blind in his right eye with no one to watch after him as he started walking in the wrong direction (316). While preparing for and being on this mountain climb, the mountain trekkers experienced emotions only humans facing struggles can feel with such intensity. The author experienced determination when he wished to quench is mountain-climbing thirst even with his few credentials and he felt belief as he wore a Xi-stone and hoped his partner Doug would reach the summit with him (113, 159). The author, who probably never felt these human emotions on a regular basis with such fervor, only experienced them when he was faced with the struggle of climbing Everest. As the author climbed Everest, he realized several things that he would not have had he not climbed Everest. When forced to be the ice chopper in place of a Sherpa, Krakauer understood that even as he goes under gruesome conditions as a climber, and life in general, some people have to do even more labor than he

The Harvard Business School case Mount Everest – 1996 narrates the events of May 11, 1996, when 8 people-including the two expedition leaders— died during a climb to the tallest mountain in the world (five deaths are described in the case, three border police form India also died that day). This was dubbed the “deadliest day in the mountain’s history” (at least until April 18, 2014). The survivors and many analysts have tried to decipher what went wrong that day, find an underlying cause, and learn from the event.

On May 10, 1996 six people died trying to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. These people were parts of two expeditions that were in the Himalayas, preparing to ascend the summit for six weeks. The first group was under the direction of Rob Hall, who had put 39 paying clients on the summit in five years. Hall was considered the leader of the mountain and the man to see no matter what the discrepancy. Group two, headed by Fisher, who like Hall, was trying to start a profitable business in providing the experience of climbing Mt. Everest to all for the price of 60 to 70 thousand dollars. Unfortunatly, neither man would live to tell the tale of this expedition.