50 Fun Facts About Into Thin Air

Göran Kropp, the Swedish soloist of Into Thin Air, got from Stockholm to Nepal mainly by what means?

By bicycle, Göran Kropp hauled 108 kg of food and gear some 13,000 km toward Everest. He then climbed it alone, without bottled oxygen or Sherpa support.

Dying high on Everest, Rob Hall was patched through by radio and satellite phone to speak with whom?

His pregnant wife, Jan Arnold, took the call at home, and the couple chose a name for their unborn child. Arnold, a doctor, had stood on Everest's summit with Hall in 1993.

What did Beck Weathers do on Everest hours after teammates had judged him beyond saving?

Beck Weathers walked back to camp alone, after lying unconscious in the snow through a night of storm. Frostbite later cost him his nose, his right hand and the fingers of his left.

Which magazine sent Jon Krakauer to Everest in 1996, an assignment that grew into Into Thin Air?

Outside published his article in September 1996, and the book followed a year later. Rival leaders Rob Hall and Scott Fischer had each wanted the journalist on their own team.

Which country was home to Rob Hall, the Adventure Consultants leader who died high on Everest?

New Zealand produced Rob Hall, who had just made his fifth Everest ascent, then more than any other non-Sherpa. He charged $65,000 a head and still had no trouble filling his team.

Which 40-foot rock wall near Everest's summit caused an hour-long traffic jam in Into Thin Air?

Hillary Step had no fixed rope when the teams arrived, so climbers waited an hour while guides installed one. The rock wall itself is thought to have collapsed in Nepal's 2015 earthquake.

What nickname do climbers give the altitudes near and above 8,000 meters, where Camp Four sits in Into Thin Air?

The Death Zone is where the air holds too little oxygen to sustain the body for long, so mind and muscle steadily fail. A long stay there without bottled oxygen ends in death.

What was the day job of Doug Hansen, who had nearly reached Everest's summit with Rob Hall in 1995?

Postal worker Doug Hansen had turned back just short of the top a year earlier, and Hall talked him into trying again. Schoolchildren back home sold T-shirts to help pay his way.

Which actor plays Scott Fischer in Everest, the 2015 disaster film that Jon Krakauer denounced?

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the easygoing American guide, opposite Jason Clarke as Rob Hall. Krakauer said some of the film's details were fabricated and defamatory.

Which summit-day rule did Rob Hall drill into his clients for weeks, then fail to enforce on May 10?

A fixed turnaround time of about 2 p.m. meant heading down wherever you stood. Hall instead waited above for Doug Hansen, who topped out around 4 p.m.; neither man came down.

In which capital did Jon Krakauer first meet Rob Hall's Everest team in late March 1996?

Kathmandu is where the clients gathered before trekking in from the village of Lukla. Krakauer worried about attempting Everest with strangers he had no reason to trust.

Into Thin Air opens out of sequence, with Jon Krakauer at which point of the Everest expedition?

At the very top is where the book begins, with clouds already building below. It then jumps back through Everest's history before following the expedition in order.

Beck Weathers, a Texan on Rob Hall's Everest team, worked as what kind of doctor back in Dallas?

Pathologist Beck Weathers was one of several doctors among Hall's clients, alongside an Australian anesthesiologist. He kept practicing medicine after frostbite took his right hand.

Scott Fischer, the American guide who died on Everest in May 1996, ran which adventure company?

Mountain Madness began in 1984, when Fischer and two friends each chipped in $500. He had climbed Everest himself in 1994 without bottled oxygen.

Jon Krakauer knew Scott Fischer casually before Everest because both lived in which American city?

Seattle was home to both men, and Fischer's guiding business was based there too. Krakauer moved to Boulder, Colorado, after the book came out.

Which Jon Krakauer bestseller about Christopher McCandless appeared a year before his Everest book?

Into the Wild spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list. In it Krakauer weighs McCandless's fatal Alaskan trek against his own risky climbs as a young man.

Into Thin Air was a finalist in 1998 for which American award in general nonfiction?

Pulitzer Prize jurors shortlisted it, and Time magazine named it Book of the Year. It also reached the top of the New York Times nonfiction list.

Why did Rob Hall's Everest clients spend weeks climbing to higher camps and coming back down?

To acclimatize, Hall's team made three trips above Base Camp, each about 2,000 feet higher. Hall told Krakauer the method had already worked 39 times.

Why did Beck Weathers spend summit day waiting on a ledge called the Balcony instead of climbing on?

He could barely see: thin air had blurred eyes recently reshaped by surgery. Rob Hall told him to wait there until Hall came back down, a promise that kept Weathers standing for hours.

How was a badly frostbitten Beck Weathers finally taken off Everest from the Western Cwm?

By helicopter, in one of the highest evacuations ever attempted, a Nepali army pilot lifted Weathers out. Eight climbers from several expeditions had first helped him down to Camp II.

Socialite Sandy Hill Pittman filed online dispatches from Everest Base Camp for which TV network?

NBC Interactive Media carried her dispatches, aimed at American schoolchildren. Krakauer argues that having a reporter on each team pushed both leaders to get clients to the top.

What did Lopsang Jangbu do for Sandy Hill Pittman on summit morning, exhausting himself early?

He towed her by short rope for hours, by Krakauer's account, and never took his usual place at the front of the line. Pittman later disputed how long it lasted.

Which choice by guide Anatoli Boukreev after summiting Everest does Jon Krakauer's book question?

Descending before his clients put Boukreev in camp hours before the storm trapped them. He then went out alone into the blizzard and brought three stranded climbers back.

Guide Anatoli Boukreev died in an avalanche in December 1997 on which Himalayan peak in Nepal?

Annapurna killed him on a winter attempt, only weeks after he and Krakauer had reached a truce over the book. He was 39.

Which book did guide Anatoli Boukreev co-write to answer Into Thin Air's criticism of his conduct?

The Climb, written with G. Weston DeWalt, appeared within months of Krakauer's book. Krakauer answered back with a long postscript in his 1999 paperback.

What is the title of Beck Weathers's 2000 memoir about surviving Everest and repairing his marriage?

Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest covers the ordeal and the damaged family life he set about mending afterward. He kept working as a doctor and became a motivational speaker.

Which filmmaker led the IMAX team that helped rescue survivors of the 1996 Everest storm?

David Breashears directed and shot the IMAX film Everest, then the highest-grossing documentary in the format. Twelve days after the storm his team found Rob Hall's body.

Ian Woodall, who refused to lend a radio during the Everest storm, led which country's team?

South Africa's first Everest expedition had already lost its most experienced climbers, who quit over Woodall's leadership. A teammate died near the summit two weeks after the storm.

Makalu Gau, found frostbitten beside Scott Fischer on Everest, led a national team from where?

Taiwan's team had lost a member, Chen Yu-Nan, to a fall the day before the summit push. Sherpas brought Gau down the next day but could do nothing for Fischer.

Which Canadian client of Rob Hall quit his summit bid, then tried to organize a rescue that night?

Stuart Hutchison, the youngest client on Hall's team, turned around in the queue below the South Summit with two others. In the storm he found nobody at high camp fit enough to join a search.

Which guide on Rob Hall's team vanished near the South Summit after climbing back up with oxygen?

Andy Harris, a heli-ski guide on his first Everest attempt, was never found; only his ice axe and jacket turned up near Hall's body. Earlier he had wrongly reported the stashed oxygen bottles empty.

Jon Krakauer wrongly reported a teammate safe after mistaking which Scott Fischer client for him?

Martin Adams was the climber Krakauer actually met above camp, as he learned only months later while interviewing him. Oxygen starvation had left Krakauer sure it was someone else.

Which feeling haunts Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air's closing chapters, long after the storm?

Survivor's guilt runs through the ending: he slept in his tent while teammates froze a short walk away. In 2015 he said that he wished he had never gone to Everest.

What does Jon Krakauer report feeling when he finally stands on Everest's summit in Into Thin Air?

Too tired to care is how he sums it up: he had not slept in 57 hours, and weeks of coughing had separated two ribs. He stayed less than five minutes before starting down.

Which Everest trend was Jon Krakauer assigned to cover, at first planning to stop at Base Camp?

Its commercialization, with guides selling amateurs a place for up to $65,000, was the story. Krakauer asked for a year's delay so he could train and go for the summit himself.

Camp Four in Into Thin Air sits on which windswept saddle between Everest and Lhotse?

South Col is a bleak pass at about 26,000 feet. In the whiteout, the lost climbers huddled only some 400 meters from its tents without being able to find them.

In Into Thin Air, which shifting maze of frozen towers and crevasses lies just above Base Camp?

Khumbu Icefall is so dangerous that even ladders and fixed ropes cannot prevent deaths there. Krakauer struggled on his first crossing, yet still coped better than many teammates.

What title does Into Thin Air give Ang Dorje and Lopsang Jangbu, each team's lead climbing Sherpa?

Sirdar is the head Sherpa, who leads the others and assists the clients. Lopsang died in an avalanche on Everest that September, four months after the storm.

Which Texas businessman's guided 1985 Everest ascent inspired a wave of wealthy amateur climbers?

Dick Bass, owner of the Snowbird ski resort, was 55, then the oldest person to have reached Everest's summit. His success persuaded other amateurs that fitness and money might be enough.

Which 1963 Everest pioneer, a close friend of Jon Krakauer's father, climbed with him as a boy?

Willi Unsoeld made the first ascent of Everest's West Ridge in 1963 and lost his toes to frostbite doing it. The nine-year-old Krakauer idolized him the way his friends idolized astronauts and sports stars.

Which blessing ritual did Sherpas and climbers hold at Everest Base Camp before heading up in 1996?

A puja honors the mountain's god and asks for a safe and successful climb. Sherpas and foreign climbers took part in the ceremony side by side.

Which Alaskan peak did a young Jon Krakauer scale alone in 1977 by a new route, long before Everest?

Devils Thumb rises from the Stikine Icecap, where Krakauer spent three weeks alone after college. He retold the adventure in two of his earlier books.

Which actor played Jon Krakauer in the 1997 TV film of Into Thin Air, alongside Peter Horton?

Christopher McDonald played him in the ABC film, broadcast in November 1997, the same year the book appeared. Krakauer later regretted how quickly the film rights were sold.

Into Thin Air's subtitle labels Jon Krakauer's telling of the Mt. Everest disaster as what?

A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is the full subtitle, a signal that this is one shaken witness's view. Other survivors later published versions that differ from his.

Three climbers from which country's border police died on Everest's north side in the 1996 storm?

India lost half the summit team of its Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition, high on the Northeast Ridge. Their deaths bring the storm's toll to eight.

The lost climbers in Into Thin Air huddled just yards from a sheer drop down which side of Everest?

Kangshung Face is Everest's remote eastern wall, falling away into Tibet. The group stopped about 20 meters from its edge, unable to see where the tents were.

Which climber proved with Peter Habeler in 1978 that Everest could be scaled without bottled oxygen?

Reinhold Messner later soloed Everest and climbed all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks the same way. In 1996 a guide and a lead Sherpa went without it on summit day, and Krakauer faults both.

Which Tibetan name for Everest, roughly meaning Holy Mother, is far older than the English one?

Chomolungma is the popular spelling of the Tibetan name. Sir George Everest himself objected to the English one, saying local people could neither write nor pronounce it.

Which of these events comes first in the timeline of Into Thin Air's 1996 Everest season?

Ngawang Topche falls ill on April 22, weeks before the summit push, and dies in hospital that June. Chen's fall came on May 9, Krakauer's summit on May 10 and Hall's final call on May 11.

Everest was the last peak Yasuko Namba needed, after Vinson and Carstensz, for which challenge?

The Seven Summits were complete once she topped out, making her at 47 the oldest woman then to have stood on Everest. She died within a day, a short walk from the tents of Camp Four.