As most members of Jon Krakauer’s Everest climbing team remain stranded on the mountain, Stuart Hutchison acts as impromptu leader and searches for the bodies of Beck Weathers and Yasuko Namba, which, upon discovering them alive, he is forced to leave because of their critical conditions. Beck Weathers later comes into camp, astounding everyone with his incredible feat. He is immediately given medical attention by Hutchison and two other climbers in Camp Four. Anatoli Boukreev also sets out to find Scott Fischer, who is dead by the time Boukreev reaches him. That evening, a savagely windy night nearly rips Krakauer’s tent from the ground and collapses Beck Weathers’s tent on him. The next morning before departing, Krakauer chances on him and frees him, then sends two other men to care for him while he descends with the rest of his team. Krakauer then begins to explain the events that preceded the disaster, inevitably coming back to his own descent and its perils- most of the climbers were severely hypoxic and prone to making poor decisions. Beck Weathers is then assisted to Camp Two by eight healthy climbers; a helicopter subsequently rescues him and Makalu Gau. When Krakauer finally makes off of Everest, he and his fellow climbers are met with a press storm. Krakauer then explains his “survivor’s guilt,” and his resulting decision to avoid calling the loved ones of the deceased Rob Hall and Andy Harris until they called him. He also tries to evaluate the potential causes for the disaster, attributing Hall’s decision to allow Doug Hansen to reach the summit to a combination of overconfidence, hubris, a desire not to disappoint the man he’d turned back once, a year earlier, a clean track record of successful summits, and hopes for fair weather. Finally, Krakauer discusses follow-up conversations with those who survived the disaster and feel optimistic about the future, having come to terms with the tragic events of May 1996. The novel ends with an examination of the ensuing backlash against Krakauer, his article for the Outside, and Into Thin Air (chiefly its portrayal of the late Anatoli Boukreev. Krakauer goes on to describe a brief period of disenchantment between the two men and then a hopeful conversation that Krakauer believed would lead down an amicable road. Boukreev, however, was tragically killed in an avalanche while attempting to summit Annapurna). 

Connections:
This reading reflected Jon Krakauer's thoughts in the months after the events described in the previous chapters. They were more of a thoughtful reflection and respectful examination than a narrative, and featured heavily descriptions of some of the backlash Krakauer received after publishing (chiefly from Weston DeWalt). However, for the most part, Krakauer still maintains a respectful, reflective tone and writing style in the last chapters of the book.

Should they be charged with anything for not even attempting to help all three people when they were fully able to?

How do you think Weathers, and the others if they were still alive, felt knowing that they had essentially been left for dead?

How do you think he survived, already in “gruesome condition”, another night with no sleeping bags?

Would you begin to doubt your survival if you were him, or any member of the team, knowing that he had been left not once, but twice and one of the times he was screaming for help while within earshot of the rest of the team?

Do you think the feat of Weathers survival has something to do with the “higher power” that Krakauer talks about?

In their situation, how would you feel knowing that you had just experienced a disaster of this magnitude?

After hearing all the reasoning for the disaster, why do you think that Hall and Fischer did not fully warn them about things like this before the climb began?

Throughout the book, what would you have done in all of the different rescue situations?

Seeing the success statistics at the end, if you were offered years of training and a free climb up with the best of the best, would you do it?

When Jon gets back to Camp Four the reality of the tragic events that transpired really starts to hit him. Jon starts to switch from a past tense narrative to a present tense narrative. He also begins to try and grasp why things went so wrong. He goes over the crucial mistakes that were made.  Krakauer searches for possible reasons why mistakes were made. He makes note of how intense the pressure was for the expedition leader to get every member of their group to the summit. While the book is still in present tense we learn the amazing story of Beck Weather’s, and how he would just not go down without a fight. Beck was left to die twice and was up walking after both times.  They managed to get beck a recue helicopter, for Gau and then after another came back for beck. It seemed to be the only somewhat good story to and luck to come out of such unlucky tragic event. Krakaur also after making it home from the trip writes the article for Outside magazine. Many were very offended by his article, and over time he realizes that perhaps he did not write the story as accurately and respectfully as he could. Krakuar always thought he had saw Andy haris walk away and solved that he fell off a cliff. But after a phone call with another man from the disaster. They both realize that the man Krakaur thought was harris was this man, and his story was all wrong.  Many other repercussions from his article causes Krakur to write this very book “into thin air” to portray the story correctly