Summit Fever

Throughout Jon Krakauer’s harrowing Into Thin Air, I was riveted. First, I was fascinated by the technical challenges and the feat of climbing Everest. Then I became engrossed in the details of the disaster – I felt jumpy, anxious, and hyper-aware even when I wasn’t reading. I still can’t imagine being so high up that your body is literally dying, that you have to fight against it for every step; or to suffer from hypoxia or edema to the point where you are no longer quite yourself, imagining things as you stumble around in an extremely dangerous environment.

It was only after I’d finished the book that I learned about the (ongoing) controversy surrounding the 1996 disaster. Still, I felt Krakauer’s account was well-researched and presented fairly. I was 12 when it happened, and don’t remember anything about it, so I think I had the benefit of not having been ‘close’ to the news cycle or finger-pointing of the time.

Ed Viestur’s IMAX team was on the mountain at the time of the disaster, and the result of their work, Everest, is viewable on Netflix. It’s a short documentary, more about the challenge and process of climbing Everest, but it was fairly interesting. I felt bad for whoever had to lug the IMAX equipment up there.

On my Dad’s recommendation, I watched Meru, which was my favorite of the films I watched after reading Into Thin Air. It did the best job of showing why people put themselves at risk on these mountains, by sharing the personal stories of three friends – their triumphs and defeats. Meru helped me understand their perspectives, though I would never do what they do. Jimmy Chin’s footage from the climb is amazing and ultimately I was rooting for them to achieve their goal.

The Summit was also really well done, through a combination of re-enactments and interviews. It’s more of a factual account about a 2008 disaster on K2. I don’t really understand the main criticisms of the film, which seem to be centered on the story not being clear or conclusive enough. Since this was the last of the climb-related stories I got through, maybe I was more forgiving of the seeming senselessness of it, the confused accounts and accountability, etc. Anyway, the 2008 K2 incident is almost the most compelling, given that it happened on a day with perfect weather. The chain of mistakes and poor decisions seem attributable to summit fever and hubris, which might make most of us shake our heads disapprovingly, but is still terribly fascinating. And yet in all of these stories there are great moments of selflessness, too.