Into Thin Air (1997)
Into Thin Air is a 1997 history book written by Jon Krakauer.
May 10, 1996, early afternoon, and Jon Krakauer stands on the summit of Everest after fifty-seven hours without sleep, his mind dulled by thin air. Below and above him, twenty other climbers push toward the top as the weather begins to turn. Krakauer went to the mountain on magazine assignment and came back with a first-hand account of the deadliest season Everest had seen. He reconstructs the guided expeditions, the crowding on the high slopes, and the choices made when judgment thins along with the oxygen. It is careful, unsparing reporting from someone who was there.
Quick answers
What is Into Thin Air about?
May 10, 1996, early afternoon, and Jon Krakauer stands on the summit of Everest after fifty-seven hours without sleep, his mind dulled by thin air. Below and above him, twenty other climbers push toward the top as the weather begins to turn. Krakauer went to the mountain on magazine assignment and came back with a first-hand account of the deadliest season Everest had seen. He reconstructs the guided expeditions, the crowding on the high slopes, and the choices made when judgment thins along with the oxygen. It is careful, unsparing reporting from someone who was there.
When was Into Thin Air published?
Into Thin Air was published in 1997.
Who made Into Thin Air?
Into Thin Air was written by Jon Krakauer.
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Into Thin Air in our writing
- Companion guide: Disaster
- Companion guide: Mountaineering
- Companion guide: Wilderness Survival
A few thoughts on Into Thin Air
Everest dramatizes the same 1996 season on screen, with the scale and cold the page can only describe. Into Thin Air: Death on Everest adapts this account more directly. Both pair well with the book, though Jon Krakauer's own words carry a weight and doubt that films tend to smooth over.
Everest and death-zone survival on screen
Into Thin Air reconstructs the 1996 Everest disaster from the inside, the crowding on the high slopes and the choices made when judgment thins with the air. These films climb the same deadly mountains, dramatizing storms, thin oxygen, and expeditions that go wrong above the clouds. The screen companion to Krakauer's firsthand account.
Survival stories against a killing cold
Beyond the summit, Into Thin Air is about ordinary people pushed past their limits in a place that wants them dead. These survival tales trade Everest for other unforgiving wilds, frozen, remote, and indifferent, where staying alive comes down to endurance and luck. For readers who want the fight-to-survive core without that specific mountain.