Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________EVEREST DEBATE, ROUND TWO BY JON KRAKAUER AND WESTON DEWALT (08/14/98)

The ongoing debate between Jon Krakauer and Weston DeWalt, which has recently resurfaced in Salon, has all the characteristics of an unresolvable, media-driven debate. Krakauer continues to question the integrity of Anatoli Boukreev, the Russian climber and guide who, unfortunately, now lies buried in the Himalayas unable to answer to the charges.
All of this makes me feel rather ill. When Krakauer first spoke out after a year of silence, I read the article in the hopes that he would have something decent to say; instead he said the same old thing. It shouldn't bother me; after all, a journalistic mud fling between two writers can be quite fun to read from the safety of our cubicle. Especially when the mud flinging is over minute details that took place 29,000 feet above our cubicles in an environment that few of us would ever dare set foot in. However, even though I have never been to Everest (I did see the summit out of the window of a jet once when I was young), I feel as if this ongoing debate involves me personally in a roundabout way.
On June 19, 1998, I was involved in a mountaineering accident on Mount McKinley. My partner and I fell about 2,500 feet, down an icy chute known as the Orient Express. Unknown to us, a British team had also experienced a fall on the same route, and four climbers were stranded at 19,000 feet waiting for help. Fortunately for my partner and me, two members of the British team were descending at the time of our fall and were able to help stabilize us and seek help from the Rescue Camp at 14,000.
In the 72 hours that followed my accident I experienced every emotion I've ever known in crystal-clear intensity and detail. I was elated that I was still alive and could, somewhat, walk. I was distressed that my partner, who lay in a coma on the cot in the Rescue Tent, might die.
In the end everything worked out. My partner eventually emerged from his deep sleep, and while he'll never be the same, he's alive. The British team, two members of which fell in the same spot as we had, suffered also. One lost most of his fingers, and one, who spent three nights at 19,000 without a sleeping bag, lost a few toes.
The hardest thing to deal with, though, was the intense media coverage of our accident. It used to be that climbers had accidents all the time, and only other climbers heard about them. But since the Everest disaster every climbing accident has been scrutinized and sensationalized. Our accident was broadcast around the world, and as I was wheeled away from the plane at the Anchorage hospital, a crowd of journalists surrounded me and began shouting questions. One snapped a photograph of me that was eventually printed in dozens of newspapers and even Newsweek magazine. In the days that followed I egotistically enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame, but was fully aware that reporters were calling my answering machine, my climbing friends, my girlfriend and anyone else who would talk about me and what might have happened up there.
A climbing accident is a terrible thing, but it is not uncommon. Every climber who has climbed for a long time knows someone who lost his or her life in the mountains. It's the way we've chosen to live our life. It has nothing to do with bravado and glory. Rather, we love the feeling that we get in the mountains. It's a feeling of freedom and succulent risk combined with the beauty of our surroundings, a feeling one cannot explain to a nonclimber. And when people lose their life in the mountains we study the accident to see what happened in the hopes that others will not make the same mistake. Accidents happen, and the higher we go and the more we surrender ourselves to the mountain, the greater the risk and the chance that we may not come down again.
Intensive media coverage, as in the case of the Krakauer/DeWalt controversy, doesn't help others deal with grief. Nor can continued scrutiny reveal anything new that may be of help to the climbers who will head up to the scene of the accident next year and the year after. The only thing that Krakauer and DeWalt have done is succeed in driving a wedge between two opposing groups of people who, normally, would have learned from those mistakes and moved on by now.
-- Billy Finley
The Everest Controversy has taken a wrong turn in focusing on individuals. There are discrepancies between Jon Krakauer's account and Anatoli Boukreev's, as told by DeWalt, but most of them (as Krakauer implies) do not affect the basic picture of what happened.
The tragedy they describe was partly caused by normal hazards of mountaineering -- bad weather, poor judgment at altitude and summit ambitions. The graver charge is that incompetent people tried to buy their way up the mountain, and that experienced mountaineers were corrupted by money into putting themselves and others at risk. That is what Krakauer was sent to investigate, and his book stands as a devastating critique of this kind of professional Himalayan expedition.
Not all the clients were incompetent; not all the guides were greedy. It is ironic that Krakauer may have been the best qualified of the clients, and Boukreev perhaps the most idealistic of the guides, or at least the one with the fewest other options to satisfy his need for climbing high.
Both their accounts ring fundamentally true to me, both are suffused with pain, horror and anger at the tragedy and at their own various failures to do more to avert it. Neither man presents himself as perfect. Their differences may be due in part to Boukreev's limited English, they may be affected by honest failures of recollection or they may be the result of an understandable, if regrettable, desire to paint oneself in a less bad light.
Let us move beyond personalities. The expeditions were operating within a system developed over the last several years, and it is the system that deserves attention. Only the Nepalese and Chinese governments (which issue the permits) can ultimately regulate the climbing of Everest, but a thorough debate of the issue among the potential customers and purveyors of guiding services was long overdue. Krakauer's assignment was a good start; as the immediacy of the tragedy lessens, perhaps we can return to that discussion.
-- Pete Shanks
Santa Cruz, Calif.
Having read Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air," I was at first very interested to read the series of articles that you published regarding the conflicting accounts of Anatoli Boukreev's actions on the day of the tragedy. After beginning to read today's article, however, I was disgusted to see that this series has degenerated into a he said/she said, third-grade playground argument. I agree that there are some serious issues in the background of this story, issues that should be discussed, but the main focus seems to have become merely an attempt by each author to out-quote the other. Salon, how long are you going to let them use your pages as a forum to vent their personal vendettas against one another? This immature type of argument could go on for years!
What happened on Everest was a terrible tragedy and I don't think that we'll ever know what really happened that day. But, I think these two men owe it to their friends and fellow climbers who died that day to discuss this with a little more dignity.
-- Leandra Nessel
Athens, Ga.
Whether one chooses to believe Krakauer or his antagonists is irrelevant. People die all the time on Mount Everest; for that matter people die on minor mountains all the time. For example, about the time "Into Thin Air" was published, two idiots fell down a cliff face in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They had no experience or equipment. (As it happens, they died. Their dog survived, which certainly should be sufficient material for Krakauer to write another hand-wringer.) Even Krakauer admits the ratio of dead climbers to total climbers on Everest that year was the same as in any other year. If he wants to feel bad about being there, that's his business. But the outcome of the climbs was not unusual, which means there's nothing about which to create valid controversy in the first place.
-- Carl Witthoft

_______________QUEERTOONS BY JOYCE MILLMAN (08/03/98)

Ms. Millman begins her article by asserting that Ellen DeGeneres' program showed "that lesbians could be boring too." I am so tired of hearing women knock Ellen.
For years we lesbians were invisible in the media. The only exceptions were pathetic stereotypes who either fell in love with men or ended up lonely, miserable or dead. In recent years as positive images of gay men appeared in movies, TV and magazines, positive images of lesbians were still few and far between. A case in point is the supposedly gay-friendly cartoons where lesbians are conspicuously, and typically, absent. To this day, "Ellen" remains the only show whose main focus is a gay or lesbian character.
When Ellen came out on her show I, and most of my friends, rejoiced. For half an hour each week I saw myself on television. No, I am not exactly like the fictional (much less the real) Ellen. As in most sitcoms, the characters in "Ellen" represented a narrow spectrum of our population. But in this case there was one crucial difference: For the very first time ever, for 30 minutes each week, our country's most pervasive entertainment medium was devoted to stories about a lesbian. It is hard to describe the impact this had on me to those who have not experienced the total absence of cultural validation that lesbians have experienced.
Whether one likes the program or not (and I thought it was extremely funny), it seems so clearly a step forward.
-- Emerald Goldman
SALON | Aug. 18, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| GETTING WISE TO "BABYWISE" BY KATIE ALLISON GRANJU

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_______________EVEREST DEBATE, ROUND TWO BY JON KRAKAUER AND WESTON DEWALT (08/14/98)
	The ongoing debate between Jon Krakauer and Weston DeWalt, which has recently resurfaced in Salon, has all the characteristics of an unresolvable, media-driven debate. Krakauer continues to question the integrity of Anatoli Boukreev, the Russian climber and guide who, unfortunately, now lies buried in the Himalayas unable to answer to the charges. All of this makes me feel rather ill. When Krakauer first spoke out after a year of silence, I read the article in the hopes that he would have something decent to say; instead he said the same old thing. It shouldn't bother me; after all, a journalistic mud fling between two writers can be quite fun to read from the safety of our cubicle. Especially when the mud flinging is over minute details that took place 29,000 feet above our cubicles in an environment that few of us would ever dare set foot in. However, even though I have never been to Everest (I did see the summit out of the window of a jet once when I was young), I feel as if this ongoing debate involves me personally in a roundabout way. On June 19, 1998, I was involved in a mountaineering accident on Mount McKinley. My partner and I fell about 2,500 feet, down an icy chute known as the Orient Express. Unknown to us, a British team had also experienced a fall on the same route, and four climbers were stranded at 19,000 feet waiting for help. Fortunately for my partner and me, two members of the British team were descending at the time of our fall and were able to help stabilize us and seek help from the Rescue Camp at 14,000. In the 72 hours that followed my accident I experienced every emotion I've ever known in crystal-clear intensity and detail. I was elated that I was still alive and could, somewhat, walk. I was distressed that my partner, who lay in a coma on the cot in the Rescue Tent, might die. In the end everything worked out. My partner eventually emerged from his deep sleep, and while he'll never be the same, he's alive. The British team, two members of which fell in the same spot as we had, suffered also. One lost most of his fingers, and one, who spent three nights at 19,000 without a sleeping bag, lost a few toes. The hardest thing to deal with, though, was the intense media coverage of our accident. It used to be that climbers had accidents all the time, and only other climbers heard about them. But since the Everest disaster every climbing accident has been scrutinized and sensationalized. Our accident was broadcast around the world, and as I was wheeled away from the plane at the Anchorage hospital, a crowd of journalists surrounded me and began shouting questions. One snapped a photograph of me that was eventually printed in dozens of newspapers and even Newsweek magazine. In the days that followed I egotistically enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame, but was fully aware that reporters were calling my answering machine, my climbing friends, my girlfriend and anyone else who would talk about me and what might have happened up there. A climbing accident is a terrible thing, but it is not uncommon. Every climber who has climbed for a long time knows someone who lost his or her life in the mountains. It's the way we've chosen to live our life. It has nothing to do with bravado and glory. Rather, we love the feeling that we get in the mountains. It's a feeling of freedom and succulent risk combined with the beauty of our surroundings, a feeling one cannot explain to a nonclimber. And when people lose their life in the mountains we study the accident to see what happened in the hopes that others will not make the same mistake. Accidents happen, and the higher we go and the more we surrender ourselves to the mountain, the greater the risk and the chance that we may not come down again. Intensive media coverage, as in the case of the Krakauer/DeWalt controversy, doesn't help others deal with grief. Nor can continued scrutiny reveal anything new that may be of help to the climbers who will head up to the scene of the accident next year and the year after. The only thing that Krakauer and DeWalt have done is succeed in driving a wedge between two opposing groups of people who, normally, would have learned from those mistakes and moved on by now. -- Billy Finley The Everest Controversy has taken a wrong turn in focusing on individuals. There are discrepancies between Jon Krakauer's account and Anatoli Boukreev's, as told by DeWalt, but most of them (as Krakauer implies) do not affect the basic picture of what happened. The tragedy they describe was partly caused by normal hazards of mountaineering -- bad weather, poor judgment at altitude and summit ambitions. The graver charge is that incompetent people tried to buy their way up the mountain, and that experienced mountaineers were corrupted by money into putting themselves and others at risk. That is what Krakauer was sent to investigate, and his book stands as a devastating critique of this kind of professional Himalayan expedition. Not all the clients were incompetent; not all the guides were greedy. It is ironic that Krakauer may have been the best qualified of the clients, and Boukreev perhaps the most idealistic of the guides, or at least the one with the fewest other options to satisfy his need for climbing high. Both their accounts ring fundamentally true to me, both are suffused with pain, horror and anger at the tragedy and at their own various failures to do more to avert it. Neither man presents himself as perfect. Their differences may be due in part to Boukreev's limited English, they may be affected by honest failures of recollection or they may be the result of an understandable, if regrettable, desire to paint oneself in a less bad light. Let us move beyond personalities. The expeditions were operating within a system developed over the last several years, and it is the system that deserves attention. Only the Nepalese and Chinese governments (which issue the permits) can ultimately regulate the climbing of Everest, but a thorough debate of the issue among the potential customers and purveyors of guiding services was long overdue. Krakauer's assignment was a good start; as the immediacy of the tragedy lessens, perhaps we can return to that discussion. -- Pete Shanks Santa Cruz, Calif. Having read Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air," I was at first very interested to read the series of articles that you published regarding the conflicting accounts of Anatoli Boukreev's actions on the day of the tragedy. After beginning to read today's article, however, I was disgusted to see that this series has degenerated into a he said/she said, third-grade playground argument. I agree that there are some serious issues in the background of this story, issues that should be discussed, but the main focus seems to have become merely an attempt by each author to out-quote the other. Salon, how long are you going to let them use your pages as a forum to vent their personal vendettas against one another? This immature type of argument could go on for years! What happened on Everest was a terrible tragedy and I don't think that we'll ever know what really happened that day. But, I think these two men owe it to their friends and fellow climbers who died that day to discuss this with a little more dignity. -- Leandra Nessel Athens, Ga. Whether one chooses to believe Krakauer or his antagonists is irrelevant. People die all the time on Mount Everest; for that matter people die on minor mountains all the time. For example, about the time "Into Thin Air" was published, two idiots fell down a cliff face in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They had no experience or equipment. (As it happens, they died. Their dog survived, which certainly should be sufficient material for Krakauer to write another hand-wringer.) Even Krakauer admits the ratio of dead climbers to total climbers on Everest that year was the same as in any other year. If he wants to feel bad about being there, that's his business. But the outcome of the climbs was not unusual, which means there's nothing about which to create valid controversy in the first place. -- Carl Witthoft
_______________QUEERTOONS BY JOYCE MILLMAN (08/03/98)
	Ms. Millman begins her article by asserting that Ellen DeGeneres' program showed "that lesbians could be boring too." I am so tired of hearing women knock Ellen. For years we lesbians were invisible in the media. The only exceptions were pathetic stereotypes who either fell in love with men or ended up lonely, miserable or dead. In recent years as positive images of gay men appeared in movies, TV and magazines, positive images of lesbians were still few and far between. A case in point is the supposedly gay-friendly cartoons where lesbians are conspicuously, and typically, absent. To this day, "Ellen" remains the only show whose main focus is a gay or lesbian character. When Ellen came out on her show I, and most of my friends, rejoiced. For half an hour each week I saw myself on television. No, I am not exactly like the fictional (much less the real) Ellen. As in most sitcoms, the characters in "Ellen" represented a narrow spectrum of our population. But in this case there was one crucial difference: For the very first time ever, for 30 minutes each week, our country's most pervasive entertainment medium was devoted to stories about a lesbian. It is hard to describe the impact this had on me to those who have not experienced the total absence of cultural validation that lesbians have experienced. Whether one likes the program or not (and I thought it was extremely funny), it seems so clearly a step forward. -- Emerald Goldman SALON \| Aug. 18, 1998