← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:00]
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- [01:13]
Alison Stewart
This is ALL OF it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. This hour, we look back at two tragic events that left a lasting mark on American history and culture. First, author and journalist Jon Krakauer was on assignment for Outside magazine when a deadly blizzard struck Mount Everest, claiming the lives of eight climbers. His account of that expedition became the acclaimed memoir Into Thin Air. And later in the hour, we'll speak with journalist Adam Higginbotham about the 1986 Challenger disaster. His book examines the events that led up to the explosion that took the lives of all seven astronauts on board. But first, we look back on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. Thirty years ago, eight climbers lost their lives when a devastating blizzard struck Mount Everest as they attempted to reach the summit. One of the survivors was author and journalist Jon Krakauer, who was there on assignment for Outside magazine. He barely escaped with his life. John's account of the disaster, Into Thin Air, has become a contemporary classic of memoir and narrative nonfiction. He wrote the book as a warning, examining how commercialization, inexperience and risk taking have made climbing Everest more dangerous than ever. Yet decades later, Everest continues to draw record numbers of climbers. In a new forward to Into Thin Air, john writes, the deadly hazards I wrote about attracted novice climbers to Everest like gamblers to a slot machine. So what has changed and what has stayed the same since the 1996 Everest disaster? John joined me the week of the 30th anniversary back in May, and you'll hear our conversation. But this is an encore presentation, so we can't take your calls today. I began by asking him where he was in his career then and why he decided to say yes to. To this story.
- [03:21]
Jon Krakauer
My freelance writing career was just kind of starting to be tenable, just starting to be barely above the poverty line. And I was working on into the Wild, the book, when the call came. Do you want to go to Mount Everest? And I had thought I was no longer interested in Mount Everest. I was sort of a snob. I was a serious rock climber and thought Mount Everest not too easy. But as soon as I had a
- [03:52]
Alison Stewart
chance, Mount Everest was too easy.
- [03:53]
Jon Krakauer
Well, it's a long story, but no, as soon as it was actually, no, you can really do this. This magazine, I was like, yeah, who doesn't want to climb Mount Everest? So I was very. Didn't have to think I was ready to go.
- [04:05]
Alison Stewart
You know, as you said, you were an experienced climber. You talk about the different mountains that you've scaled. What was impossible for you to truly prepare for climbing Mount Everest with retrospect, what was impossible? Yeah, like you thought, like, what would make it so difficult?
- [04:22]
Jon Krakauer
Oh, I mean, Everest for me, I'd never been higher than 17,000ft. And I knew enough to know that, that you're, you know, to then try to climb something that's 29,000ft, that's pushing, that's not good. You need to have experience at what your. What happens to your body at altitude. But I was willing to. I'll deal with that was the main thing, climbing at altitude. And I had no idea. Climbing altitude was so much more involved and difficult and fraught than I ever imagined. So I was really unprepared for that.
- [04:53]
Alison Stewart
What was fraught about it?
- [04:57]
Jon Krakauer
Just when you don't have oxygen, the way your brain doesn't function, the way I didn't know, your body by the time you get to 17,000ft is deteriorating slowly. The higher you go, the more it deteriorates. You can't put on weight. You can't really build. I was trying to, like, work hard to stay fit or get fitter. And what I was really doing is just getting exhausted, like every. All that energy I was using in April, I should have been saving for May when I was going to be up on the mountain. So I was doing a lot of things wrong because I didn't know what it was like to climb at altitude. Your judgment is so distorted. And when you get up on the upper mountain, like above 26, 27,000ft. You really need that bottled oxygen? I really need it. There's climbers who acclimatize and can do it without. But I'm not, I'm not an exceptional, I'm not an elite athlete. I'm a pretty normal person and normal people will die if they don't have that bottled oxygen.
- [05:59]
Alison Stewart
When you think back to that experience on Everest, which sense comes back to you first? The sense of sight sound.
- [06:08]
Jon Krakauer
Well, it's complicated for me because the first sense is a sense of shame and guilt for being party to that dis. On good days I still remember. I remember the morning we went, we decided to go for the summit. It had been a big windstorm. We didn't think we'd get a chance the morning like we were going to leave at 11:30, like at 10 or something. Rob hall, our leader, said we're going for it. And God, it was just a beautiful night. It was like 30 below cold but crystal clear. I'd never seen so many stars. There was a moon out and you could look to the south just to towards India and you could see the monsoon approaching. Just this wall of thunderheads, lightning shooting up into the sky in the distance. You couldn't hear any thunder of course, but it was just, it was really, it was fantastic. It was one of the greatest days of climbing I ever had. And you're moving into this, into territory I could scarcely imagine. And it was, seemed to be going really well and to watch the sun come up to, you know, it was just incredible. I still have very vivid memories of that morning.
- [07:14]
Alison Stewart
You talk about in the introduct how many of the details about what happened were a bit fuzzy. And you could ask four people what happened and they would tell you totally different things. What factor contributed to that? People having wildly different recollections.
- [07:30]
Jon Krakauer
I think the hypoxia, lack of oxygen to the brain. I mean it affects your judgment, it affects your memory, it affects your ability to do anything remotely physically strenuous. It's hard to explain. I mean it also, it also. Because it's not just you have this oxygen mask on, you have these goggles on. I felt like I was kind of in this spacesuit cut off from reality. And it was this weird sense of being drugged. And I'm walking along the summit ridge toward the summit. One step, four breaths. I mean one step like every 30 seconds is really slow but. And this 8,000 foot drop off to one side and 7,000 foot to the other and we hadn't fixed ropes. There's no. We're not tied to anybody. We're not tied to a rope. If you tripped, you would die. And so you have to keep your. And you're kind of in this drug state. Like, wow, is this even real? Is this a screen? And you have to remind yourself it's real. And if you trip, you're going to die. So you have to keep telling yourself, stay alert, stay alert. This is for real. And it sounds stupid, but up there, if you don't remind yourself, you could easily come to grief.
- [08:33]
Alison Stewart
It also sounds like you had to be self contained, like you almost had to just focus on yourself and not the people around you.
- [08:39]
Jon Krakauer
Well, yeah, and that was partly the nature of guided climbing, partly guides. You have all these clients you've never climbed with. They haven't necessarily been honest about their experience or skill. You can't trust them to take care of themselves. Guides don't tell you this, they don't tell their clients. But every guide I know, they have this joke. They tell. There's only two things you need to know to be a successful guide. One, the clients are trying to kill themselves. Two, the client is trying to kill you. And so the guides are very wary clients. They don't want them to have any agency. They don't want to make decisions on their own. You are indoctrinated from the time you get there to do what they tell you and nothing else. They are the authority. Do not take your own initiative. And that was really difficult for me. And in the end, it really complicated my feelings about. It's no excuse, but if I hadn't been guided, I would have never made some of the decisions. If I was with my friends, tied to. I would have had this sense of team and companion. You know, when you're. We are guided client, you're never tied into anyone else. And everyone's kind of in it for themselves. It was really one of the best things about climbing, if you're not climbing alone, which I do a lot, is this, I don't know, this bond you have with your partner because it's really intimate. You have your lives in each other's hands, not metaphorically, very literally. And that's taken away on these guided climbs, at least for me. I mean, I can't speak for. I'm not used to being guided. I'm used to doing it myself. So it was a very strange way to climb the mountain. I mean, also, I mean, Everest is one of the few, maybe the only mountain where you, I Felt like I wasn't really climbing it because on every other mountain I've climbed, you know, I carry this heavy pack with my tent and my food and my fuel. And on Everest, the Sherpas do all that. The Sherpas put up the ropes. You are just, you know, being led up the mountain and you don't have to. It's another way that you're not sort of being self reliant. And for me, climbing is all about self reliance. That's one of the great things about it.
- [10:46]
Alison Stewart
You also write that in your life people told you to take more time for yourself to understand what happened before riding into thin air. Maybe you needed a few years to distance yourself. You did not take that advice. Why didn't you listen?
- [11:00]
Jon Krakauer
I had this desperate need to. I was really messed up. I had ptsd. I didn't know it or wouldn't acknowledge it, but I was very traumatized, severely traumatized. I was angry, I was frustrated. I felt deep shame, deep guilt. And I thought if I could just write about it, it would be cathartic and it would somehow allow me to come to grips with it. It didn't do that at all. But one reason I'm glad I did it, then it's a more honest book. I think my feelings come through. I mean, I think that emotion, those senses come through. The way I wrote it. It would have been a very different book if I'd written three years. And I think I would have lost something about. Something about the honesty of how I felt and the honesty of the experience by writing it so soon. I don't regret doing that.
- [11:52]
Alison Stewart
What did you want this book to represent to the. The people who lost loved ones?
- [12:01]
Jon Krakauer
I wanted to be as accurate as I could. I wanted them to know what happened. Because I would. If I had lost a son or a daughter or a brother, I would want to know exactly what happened. All of it. I would want it straight. And I felt a duty to tell it straight to the best I could. You know, I really came to. Four members of my expedition died. Two of the three guides and two clients. One of whom. One of the clients, Doug Hanson, I had become very close to. I shared a tent with much of it. One of the guides, Andy Harris, the youngest junior guide, he and I were really alike in a lot of ways. So I was really close to both those men. And both of them were killed. And that messed me up. And I wanted to. For their families. His sister, Doug's sister Diane. Andy's partner, Fiona. His parents. And after the expedition Two years later, Andy Harris's parents and Doug's sister and I and my wife went back to Everest and built a memorial just below Base Camp for the people we lost. And that was a very powerful experience.
- [13:08]
Alison Stewart
Of the climbers that lived at least one Sandy Hill then Sandy Pittman had a very different take on what happened. And she said the book caused her some pain. Have you spoken to her?
- [13:18]
Jon Krakauer
The last time I spoke with her was when I fact checked the book and she asked me. None of it was all off the record. We did check some facts, yeah. I felt sorry for her. She was villainized and humiliated. I mean, you know, Sandy is. Sandy thinks. I mean, I know Sandy's upset with the book, but I don't know. I wrote it as accurately as I could. I think she takes issue. You can read her book and. Or, you know, I don't talk to her and read my book and make up your own mind. She was a, you know, she was a main character. She was a celebrity at Everest. She was, you know, she was seeking attention and publicity and it came back to bite her. And I don't, you know, I don't. I think she feels my book was responsible. What was really responsible, in my view, was the Vanity Fair piece. Did you ever see that?
- [14:10]
Alison Stewart
Oh, yes.
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Jon Krakauer
It was really brutal. So, you know, I don't know what to say. I feel bad for Sandy. She didn't deserve. She did not cause the tragedy. She was any more than any of the rest of us did. There was a cascade of small errors and bad decisions and bad luck. And when it hit critical mass, everything went, you know, went to hell. But she certainly was not to blame.
- [14:37]
Alison Stewart
Let's take a call. Stuart is calling from Manhattan. Hi, Stuart, thanks for calling, all of it.
- [14:44]
Callers
Hi there. Yes, well, I'm interested in the story I read Into Thin Air back around the time it came out, as I recall. And I'm not a climber myself. I did climb Kilimanjaro and love looking at stars from 19,000ft. So I resonate with what John said earlier. My question is about Anatoly Bukhareyev, who wrote a book, a rejoinder, I believe, called the Climb and I can't remember it's been so long, what the central contention was and the difference of point of view that he offered. But I'd be interested in John's discussion of another professional who was on that climb and some of the maybe tensions or disagreements in the way the history is represented now.
- [15:28]
Jon Krakauer
Yeah, I mean, Anatoly Bucharev at the Time was one of the strongest, most talented high altitude climbers in the world. He might have been the best. You know, I praised him for that. He was a Russian who had a very different idea of guiding than Westerners do, including the leader of his expedition, Scott Fisher. Anatoly believed clients shouldn't be coddled, as he told me several times, and many other people, if client cannot get to top on his own, should not be there. You know, he didn't think, he said he was doing a disservice to coddle them. So our big. The big disagreement came with. Anatoly had always climbed without oxygen. He didn't need it, he didn't use it, but he hadn't guided at altitude before. And when you're a guide, if you don't have oxygen, you can't do certain things for your clients. For one thing, you can't stand around if your clients are going slowly, you can't slow down with them because you'll get hypothermia and frostbite. Because oxygen doesn't only just provide what you need for your muscles and to work, it keeps you warm. So Anatoly, he went down ahead of all his clients and he had to because he had decided not to use oxygen. I criticized him for that. And a lot of people said, how can you criticize him? He was the hero. He saved lives. And he did. He heroically risked his life to bring in three clients from the far side of the south call. But one thing that I want to make clear is Anatoly was a hero. He did that. But those clients got down to the call from the upper mountain because the junior guide, Neil Beidelman, got them there. No one realized that Neil was at least as much of a hero as Anatoly was. He risked his life at least as much. And with some of the stronger clients, like Klepp Schoening, they all got down to the south call. So I don't know. I can't. You know, you should read those, all the books. There's like 25 books now about 1996 and, you know, read them all documentaries as well.
- [17:35]
Alison Stewart
I watched one last night. Yeah.
- [17:37]
Jon Krakauer
So there's a lot. People can look at them and make up their own mind. That's what I recommend.
- [17:41]
Alison Stewart
We'll have more of my conversation with Into Thin Air author Jon KRAKAUER about the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. This is all of it. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're back with more of my conversation with author Jon KRAKAUER. It's the 30th anniversary of the fatal disaster on Mount Everest that took eight lives. It was the subject of John's acclaimed book, Into Thin Air, a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster. A new edition is out now with a new introduction. In this part of the conversation, I read John a text from a listener. The question read, can you discuss the cultural responsibility of Westerners in the context of adventure travel? Hearing about the changes on Everest over the years between Sherpas and Western climbers may be similar to surfing, diving and other sports in many countries.
- [18:46]
Jon Krakauer
Yeah, I have a hard time comparing it to those other sports. The impact of. I mean, when I climbed Everest, I was the 621st person to do it in 1996. Since then, over those 30 years, 13,000 people have climbed it. Right now, as we speak, a thousand people, half clients, half Sherpa guides, are about to head for the summit. So the crowds make a huge environmental impact, a huge cultural impact. The people living in that area, the Khumbu region, are mostly Sherpa, but there are some other ethnic groups, too, the Rai, the Tamang. But the tourist economy is huge, and it's welcome by those people. So on one hand, they want all those climbers and trekkers. On the other hand, there's a lot of environmental impact that is not great, especially on Everest. I mean, Everest, now things are getting better. Nepal is such a. There's so much corruption and the government's been so dysfunctional that when they make regulations, they're usually just ignored. But now there's new regulations about climbers on Everest have to carry out their feces, their human waste. They have to carry out a certain number of kilograms of trash. So all that's for the good. But with a thousand people climbing it every year, it's really hard to keep up with, you know, to get ahead of the damage, let alone keep up with it. So, yeah, there's real impacts, at least from climbing.
- [20:23]
WNYC Studios Announcer
What was your experience with the Sherpas?
- [20:26]
Alison Stewart
How were they treated when you climbed Everest? They were an indigenous group, ethnic to Nepal.
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Jon Krakauer
Yeah, I mean, there's this. It's interesting because the first ascent of Everest was made by a Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary. And they had tremendous respect for each other. They viewed each other as equals. They made it clear that that Tenzing was at least as strong a climber. So there was this equity, this equality from the start. But in the years, you know, in the tradition of India and Imperial India, there were the sahibs, the white people, and the coolies who carried the loads and did the work. And that was always sort of misunderstood. It wasn't true. A lot there were. There were a lot of really strong Sherpa climbers. But so when I was there, it was sort of in a transition period. I remember our guides would refer to the Sherpas as the boys. You know, send the boys up the hill for more, you know, to bring up more fuel. But there's also tremendous respect. I mean, Rob hall went out of his way to make it easy for us to get to know the Sherpas who worked for him. We would sometimes eat dinner, some of us, in their cook tent. And I became. I made a lifelong friend with the base camp cook, Chungba Sherpa, who has since become really involved with the Khumbu Climbing center that we started, that Conrad Anker and Jenny Lowe started in 2004, 2005, to train Sherpas to teach them climbing skills. So it's been this. They just didn't get the respect from elite climbers. And the Westerners still controlled all the guide services. That has changed completely. Right now, most of the guide services, the vast majority, are owned by. By Sherpas. The Sherpas would work in them. They are the most skilled guides on the mountain. The Sherpas are profiting from it. The Sherpas are also the people. The Sherpas that own the companies are still exploiting the Sherpas who work for them. But, you know, that's better than foreigners doing it. So it's in transition. It's all. I mean, Sherpas get so much respect now, and they deserve it, which is a really good thing.
- [22:29]
Alison Stewart
This says from Christopher in Greenpoint. I love this book so much. I found one of the most powerful moments to be about the moment during the descent, still near the summit, when JK Turned off his oxygen to save his supply. Or so he thought. What happened next was chilling and frightening, and I'd love to hear his take on that moment now.
- [22:47]
Jon Krakauer
Oh, it was frightening. So I was on my way down. I was just below the summit. I knew I stupidly had not taken my third bottle up with me to the summit. I thought I'd pick it up on the way down, so I thought, I have just enough to make it down. So I was hurrying down. I got to the top of the most technical part, the Hillary Step, that you have to rappel. And as I was about to clip into the rappel, line. I looked down and there were 30 people coming up a single rope. I was stuck there waiting for 90 minutes. My oxygen ran out after 10 minutes and it was frightening. I mean, I felt like, you know, I was suffocating. I felt like my brain had stopped working and I had to get down part of that part of the section below me. There were no ropes. And there are these extreme. A knife edge ridge with extreme. So I was terrified. And when it finally cleared, I went down slowly. I freaked out when I got to one of the places without a rope. And I just plunged in my ice ax and waited for someone to bring me, for another guy, Mike Groom, to bring me. Loaned me his bottle of oxygen, but it was terrifying. That's one of the things where I did not belong there because I lacked the experience to know what I was risking by saying, you know what? I think I can get up to the top and back to the South Summit in time. That was the stupid thing that almost cost me my life.
- [24:04]
Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Steve, who's calling in from Rockland County. Steve, thank you for making the time to call all of it. You're on the air with Jon Krakauer.
- [24:11]
Callers
Well, thank you for your show and also it's a pleasure talking to you, John. I really enjoyed your books, etc. I grew up in Southern California and as a kid we used to go out to Claremont to my grandparents out, and they lived next to somebody that had summit. It was either Hillary, it was some one of the earliest summiters. But that book had always that that climb and Killing the Jar had always been in my plots. And then when your book came out, I was driving up the New Jersey Turnpike and I couldn't put it down. I had to read while I was driving.
- [24:56]
Alison Stewart
I don't want to hear that, by the way. Sir?
- [24:59]
Callers
Yeah, Is there any police? Is there any police on the thing? You know, but then recently, you know, I climbed Kilimanjaro to two years ago, and I'd be sitting on the mountain and it's not a climb, it's a. It's a heavy walk. But people come by and say, how old are you? You know, and I'd say, you know, 79. They go, what the f are you doing up here?
- [25:23]
Alison Stewart
You know, thank you so much for calling in. I did want to talk to Carol, Alex in Carroll Gardens. This is an interesting question. Yeah, Alex, thank you so much for calling, all of it.
- [25:35]
Callers
Hey, yeah, thanks for taking my call. And yeah, it's really exciting to talk with John. Thank you. For all the writing you've done, I was wondering kind of as a climber. I climb in the gunks a lot and in New York State and a little bit around the country. But I was kind of curious how you think people's risk tolerance has changed with not only social media, but just media in general. We just saw Alex Honnold Solo, Taipei 101, which was a bit of a publicity stunt. But, you know, we even have things like the HBO doc the Dark wizard about Dean Potter that just came out. And you know, this thing that is a very personal pursuit has now become like a very public display. And I do wonder if you have thoughts on, you know, even since you climbed Everest and all the, all the mountaineering and kind of alpinism you've done, if you feel like that has maybe changed people's risk tolerance or.
- [26:25]
Jon Krakauer
You know, it's definitely. I don't. It's. It's. I mean, it's really a good question and it's very kind of disturbing to me because climbing when I started was this countercultural thing and taking risks was really. We, we valued that. The people who took the most risk with the most control. Like if you were just reckless and you didn't value your life, those people were shamed. But if you, you know, you gain prestige by doing the hardest climbs without a rope. And so I saw value in that. I mean, I've been highly criticized by friends like, you know, you're setting bad examples. And one is. I mean, I don't know how to answer that because a lot of the climbers I knew who were doing that really hard stuff, they were sort of. It was. They had to do it. It's what they had to do to live. That doesn't make sense unless you. They were tormented. It gave them purpose. It actually was good for them if they didn't get killed. That's sort of paradoxical, but that's how I saw it, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think unfortunately a lot of people see Alex Honnold or see the film the Dark Knight and are going to do stuff that they shouldn't be doing because they don't understand how serious those people. Alex, for instance, takes it. He has incredible control and he's taking very calculated risks. I worry about him all the time. I know him, but I don't think he's less likely to get killed than I am because I, you know, I don't climb stuff nearly as hard, but I don't. I lack his focus, his control. So, yeah, it's hard. It's a good question. When someone dies, I mean, climbing to me is one of the most glorious activities there is. But when someone dies, to have to justify it to the people who love them is impossible and really, really discouraging. And I've had to do that several times. And most climbers I know have had to do that because we've all lost close friends. It's not something that should be taken lightly.
- [28:17]
Alison Stewart
John, when you came back, you opened up about having PTSD. What were mental health services like 30 years ago?
- [28:25]
Jon Krakauer
I don't know, because I wouldn't try them. I mean, I was one of those people who was convinced I didn't have ptsd. If I did, it wasn't a problem. My wife would have tried to tell me very differently. And it wasn't until I went to Afghanistan for one of my other books about Pat Tillman and came back and I had been impressed with the sacrifices the soldiers and Marines made over there. So I hung out with them and worked on their nonprofit. And they invited me. They said, you know, hey, we have group therapy every Tuesday night. You should come. And I was like, group therapy? Why would I want group therapy? Well, because we can tell from your book you have got ptsd. No, I don't. And they bugged me for a couple years to come. And finally I said, okay, if you promise to stop asking me, I'll come three times. And I went and went for the next seven years, and it really, really helped me. It's hard to explain how it was kind of magical, but these were half Vietnam era vets, half younger guys who'd been to Iraq and Afghanistan. And they knew PTSD and they knew the importance of support and listening. And I wasn't. I didn't serve like all of them did, but they. They gotten to know me and they trusted me and they really, really helped me.
- [29:39]
Alison Stewart
I mean, yeah, I bet it's interesting in looking at the book and it sort of jumps out at me. A personal account of the Mount Everest disaster. When you think about it, it's a personal account.
- [29:52]
Jon Krakauer
Very much so. And I think that's important.
- [29:53]
Alison Stewart
You're right.
- [29:54]
Jon Krakauer
Yeah. Because, I mean, as we've talked about at altitude, everyone's memory is different. And so my personal account, that's my personal account. You can have your personal account. This is mine. You should remember that this is how I experienced it. I saw it. I'm not going to say yours is wrong, necessarily. So you have to understand that this is a very personal thing. For me, I wasn't being. When I got back, I was criticized by an ap. Yeah, it was an AP reporter, respected one who said, look, you know, you made yourself part of the story. You know, I'm a war reporter, and we stay out of the story. We just report on what happened. I pointed out to him, yeah, but my book was like, I was a soldier. I was both the soldier and the reporter. So I could not report it without reporting my personal experiences. I was in the mix. I was affecting. I had a profound effect on the outcome. One of the sources of my shame and guilt is that I believe my presence on the mountain contributed strongly to the bad decisions made by Rob hall and maybe Scott Fisher, because they knew a reporter was in their midst and was going to write about it. So, yeah, I don't know how I could have separated those things.
- [31:04]
Alison Stewart
That was my conversation with Into Thin Air author and journalist John KRAKAUER about the 30th anniversary of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.