The Climb Into Thin Air E X C L U S I V E E V E R E S T C O N T R O V E R S Y COMING DOWN Jon Krakauer defends "Into Thin Air" (08/03/98) REPLY Weston DeWalt, Krakauer's critic, responds (08/07/98) REBUTTAL Krakauer answers DeWalt's charges (08/07/98) ROUND TWO: DEWALT Did Krakauer's presence make climb more dangerous? (08/13/98) ROUND TWO: KRAKAUER Boukreev, heroism and luck on Everest (08/14/98) LATEST RESPONSE Weston DeWalt's last word (08/20/98) R E C E N T L Y Mondo Weirdo The deep A chance encounter with a seven-foot shark (07/31/98) Tallest Tree epiphany By Simon Firth A father and son make a rainy redwood pilgrimage (07/30/98) England's decadent delights By Douglas Cruickshank Staying at a country castle (07/29/98) Lions and tigers are PC, oh my! By Sally Eckhoff Disney goes PC at its new theme park (07/28/98) Sex, drugs and Armenian vodka By Drew Fellman What goes on behind closed doors in Iran (07/27/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives		COMING DOWN | PAGE 1, 2, 3, 4 - - - - - - - - - - Up to now, few people have paid much attention to "Into Thin Air's" detractors. But in an article in the current (July/August) issue of The Columbia Journalism Review, journalist Steve Weinberg examines their complaints anew and concludes that "they cannot be dismissed out of hand." Weinberg lumps "Into Thin Air" along with "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "The Perfect Storm" -- books whose authors have publicly admitted to either fabricating certain material or making significant factual errors -- as an example of, as his story's headline puts it, "Why Books Err So Often." Weinberg's piece doesn't dig deeply into the Krakauer affair; he merely reiterates charges made in "The Climb," a competing book about the 1996 Everest disaster by Russian climber Anatoli Boukreev and co-author G. Weston DeWalt. And because Krakauer wasn't available to be interviewed -- he had stopped speaking to reporters until recently, and his telephone number is unlisted -- Weinberg says he had no choice but to print what he had. "My job wasn't to figure out what happened on the mountain that day," he says. "It was to talk about book-industry practices that leave readers in the dark." Weinberg's article infuriated Krakauer, who dashed off an eight-page, closely typed rebuttal that accused the Columbia Journalism Review of "carelessly and unfairly" damaging his reputation. "Those guys at CJR hold everyone else up to high standards," Krakauer says. "But they don't hold themselves to the same standards. The fact that [Weinberg] couldn't reach me is not good enough. He could have called many other people who would have corroborated my version of events. It would have been easy for him." Weinberg concedes that, having read Krakauer's letter, he is more skeptical about the assertions of Krakauer's critics. "But I do think it's inexcusable that the paperback edition of 'Into Thin Air' ignores the charges in Boukreev's book. There is a dispute here, and how are readers supposed to know the truth?" Krakauer replies that he was often tempted to respond to "The Climb," but that he ultimately thought better of it. "People counseled me from the beginning to keep my mouth shut and ignore it. Anatoli can't defend himself -- he's dead." (Boukreev died last December, just two months after his book was published, in an avalanche on Nepal's legendary Annapurna.) Krakauer, whose book has far outsold Boukreev's, didn't want to appear to be piling on. But when the newspaper and magazine critics who reviewed "The Climb" did not treat the book with what Krakauer thought was proper skepticism, and when Boukreev's co-author continued to knock him in the press, he grew angrier. "I take my reputation as a reporter more seriously than I take my reputation as a writer," Krakauer says. "I didn't rely on fact-checkers to catch my errors. I busted my ass to get it right the first time." Krakauer says he now does plan to respond to Boukreev's book, in the postscript to a forthcoming illustrated edition of "Into Thin Air" that will be published in November. He's also decided, clearly, to start talking again. Krakauer makes a strong case for his version of events on Everest. But to return to Weinberg's question, how are readers supposed to know the truth? The truth's a slippery thing, particularly when you're talking about an event that happened more than two years ago to a group of climbers who were addled by sleeplessness, hunger and radical oxygen deprivation (known as hypoxia), which can make memories unreliable. But Krakauer's defenders, and Boukreev's, are more than willing to give you an earful about their version of things. In fact, you get the feeling that, given the chance, they'd be willing to argue until mighty Everest itself is worn down to a meandering footpath. N E X T+P A G E | Death, dishonor and oxygen tanks