Into Thin Air

This week I finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It detailed the ascent and descent of 11 climbers in Hall's group, and many more in Fischer's group. At the summit, calamity struck. They were caught in a terrible storm at around 1:00 when the predetermined summit time was 2:00 or they would turn back. However, Hall and Fischer were not thinking clearly and let their clients keep climbing after this predetermined time. This made the climbers run out of oxygen of which they only brought a predetermined amount. Some climbers made it to the top and bottom, whereas other were not so fortunate. Climbers reached the summit around 5:00 which created a dark, cold descent back to Camp 4. The last 50 pages detailed the horrors of climbers being stuck in the ice cold, and one climber especially, Beck. Beck was left for dead in the snow without a mask or gloves on. The next morning he showed up at Camp 4, alive and breathing. He was on his last life but kept fighting and eventually made it down the mountain, with severe frostbite, so severe his face had to be remolded with skin to remake his nose. A great, sad, and tragic book. Good read!