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Jon Krakauer

Thu, 05 Oct 2000 15:08:00 +0000

The outdoor adventure stories of Jon Krakauer are some of the most captivating writing being published today. "Eiger Dreams," his collection of mountaineering essays, takes the reader on an unforgettable journey from Alaska to the Alps to the Himalaya. "Into the Wild," the engrossing, tragic story of Chris McCandless, is a haunting book that remains with the reader far after the book is finished.

His latest book is "Into Thin Air," a personal account of the disastrous Mount Everest expedition of May 1996. Listen to this excerpt of Krakauer reading from the BDD Audio release.

Everest Debate, Round Two: Jon Krakauer

Fri, 14 Aug 1998 19:00:00 +0000

Thanks, I guess, for inviting me to respond yet again to Weston DeWalt.

One of DeWalt's primary themes in "The Climb" -- a theme repeated in his most recent comments to Salon -- is that in writing "Into Thin Air" I set out to assassinate the character of Anatoli Boukreev. To support this vile assertion, DeWalt relies on two complaints: 1) I didn't mention a purported conversation above the Hillary Step between Boukreev and Scott Fischer in which Fischer allegedly gave Boukreev permission to descend ahead of his clients; and 2) I covered up the fact that Fischer supposedly had a predetermined plan in place for Boukreev to descend ahead of his clients. This second point has already been addressed in tedious detail in the previous round of this increasingly unpleasant debate, so I will say little more except to reiterate that absolutely nobody involved in the disaster -- most notably Boukreev, the central figure in the supposed plan, who explicitly stated there was no plan -- was aware of any such arrangement.

Jon Krakauer responds

Fri, 07 Aug 1998 19:00:00 +0000

Here are a few things Weston DeWalt neglected to point out in the comments he sent to Salon:

Of the six professional climbing guides who were caught high on Everest when the storm hit on May 10, 1996, only three survived: Anatoli Boukreev, Michael Groom and Neal Beidleman. A scrupulous journalist intent on describing the tragedy accurately, in its full complexity, would presumably have interviewed each of the surviving guides (as I did for "Into Thin Air"). Inexplicably, DeWalt interviewed Boukreev but never interviewed either Groom or Beidleman.

No less baffling was DeWalt's failure to interview Lopsang Jangbu, Scott Fischer's head climbing Sherpa. Lopsang had one of the most pivotal and controversial roles in the disaster. It was he who short-roped Sandy Hill Pittman. He was with Fischer when the Mountain Madness leader collapsed during the descent; Lopsang was the last person to talk to Fischer before he died. Lopsang was also the last person to see Rob Hall, Andy Harris or Doug Hansen before they died. Yet DeWalt never made any attempt to contact Lopsang, even though the Sherpa spent much of the summer of 1996 in Seattle, and was easy to reach by phone.