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The Call
Jon Krakuaer gets a call from Bob Hall, letting him know there is a spot for him on an Everest expedition team. It took some convincing, but eventually Krakuaer began his journey to achieve his dream from when he was a child. -
The Beginning of the Climb
The majority of expedition teams began their journey to the summit, first with making their way to the Everest Base Camp, the place for which they would spend the greater majority of the climb. The expedition teams had to trek and take a helicopter to get to the base of Everest sitting at around 17,600 feet above sea level. -
Lobuche
The team reached Lobuche, at around 16,200 feet. This settlement is known as one of the last stops on the "trail to base camp". The team lodged here before completing the final trek to base camp. -
Base Camp
After days of walking through the canyons, weather beaten land, and the forests of rhododendron, Jon Krakauer finally reached Everest base camp. Later that day, the rest of his team and the other expeditions arrived to base camp as well. Krakauer's altimeter read 17,600 feet. This was celebrated by a traditional Puja celebration. -
Camp One
Krakauer and the rest of his team made their first attempt at the mountain and reached camp one. The guides and climbers both made this trip several times in order to get used to the altitude levels and to evade altitude sickness. This process is known as acclimatization. -
Camp Two
Many teams made their third and final attempt at acclimatization after starting at base camp and ascending to camp two. This final acclimatization was needed for the climbers to prepare for the final push to the summit. -
Camp Three
Krakauer's team reaches camp three and received the oxygen they would later need to use to ascend to 24,000 feet. Later they descend back to camp two and then all the way back to base camp to begin the final push to the summit. -
The Last Trip
At around 4:30 A.M. Krakauer and fellow climber Andy Harris departed for the final journey with the first stop being camp one. The other expeditions followed shortly behind. The goal was to reach summit by May 10. -
Camp Four
The expedition teams being to get ready to reach camp four. One climber fell down Lhotse face and survived, but later died on the descent. After reaching camp four, there was an oxygen accident where Harris was asked to turn down the valve on a regulator, but on accident he opened it wide and it later drained all the oxygen remaining in the tank. Accidents like this happened quite often because of the altitude level and oxygen deprivation. -
The Final Ascent
A total of four expedition teams attempted to ascend to the summit of Mt. Everest. Guide, Anatoli Boukreev led the first expedition up early in the day, and both Rob Hall and Scott Fischer's expeditions followed closely behind. The Taiwanese Expedition, led by "Makalulu" Gau-Ming Ho, was the last expedition to attempt to summit Everest. -
Summit
After the long and draining journey, Krakauer was one of the first to reach the summit. He arrived at 1:17 P.M. and spent less than five minutes "on top of the world". He had not slept in around 57 hours and was suffering from oxygen deprivation was simply not thinking straight. He noticed a few clouds in the sky but thought nothing of it. He began his descent and had no idea what was going to happen within the next 24 hours. -
Stranded
The clouds Krakauer thought nothing of were indeed a blizzard heading over Everest. The awful storm hit around 5:00 P.M. when climbers were descending and some even still at the summit of Everest. At this time Rob Hall and Scott Fischer were stranded near the summit. Krakauer thought he saw Harris, another climber, running towards camp, it would be known that Harris never made it back down to the camp at all. -
The Descent
The remaining survivors of the storm began to descend from what was left of camp four to camp two. At that time, 8 people were confirmed dead, and more were missing. It wasn't until May 13th that the survivors reached base camp again. When they got back to camp, many ceremonies and burials occurred. -
The End.
At this time, the remaining survivors were all heading back home to their families. Many to this day are still struggling with medical issues and PTSD with what happened. Krakauer brought two duffel bag full of his friend Doug Hansen's things back to his loved ones. After Krakauer published the article and even this book, he received a lot of hateful comments from the deceased family members and loved ones.
