Mt. Everest, By Jon Krakauer

You’d be surprised how climbing Mt. Everest is so similar to crossing an ocean. Many factors contribute to the Everest climb being one of the hardest physically . These include things like altitude, temperature, and the sheer amount of work you have to do to summit. While Everest isn’t the hardest mountain to climb it is still extremely challenging. Jon Krakauer’s goal is to reach the top of Everest safely and to get down safely too, in completing this goal he learned the value of perseverance and how to work with others.
Despite all the challenges that one imagines when they think of climbing Mt. Everest, there are plenty of positive moments that occur when climbing the mountain. While the ecstatic event of summiting is first thing people
Many factors contribute to the Everest climb being one of the hardest physically . These include things like altitude, temperature, and the sheer amount of work you have to do to summit. While Everest isn’t the hardest mountain to climb it is still extremely challenging. The route up Everest is treacherous and some part of the trail are more dangerous than others, as the quote explains,“The Icefall was a different story. No part of the South Col was feared more by climbers.” (pg 1259 kindle version). While the trail was difficult, what it did to you was even worse. Jon explains how the climb has affected him, “All was not well with my body, however. I’d lost nearly twenty pounds of muscle mass...I’d also burned up virtually all my subcutaneous fat, making me vastly more sensitive to the cold. My worst problem, though, was my chest: The dry hack… had gotten so bad that Id torn some thoracic cartilage”. (pg 2187 kindle version). All these difficulties, physical and mental, do teach one a lesson and Krakauer certainly learned a lot during the climb. The saying goes “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” and Jon came out of the expedition much stronger physically than he was going in. He also gained valuable skills like teamwork and
From not seeing your family for months to having to deal with the very real possibility that you or your fellow climbers could die at practically any moment, everest has plenty of elements that make it very difficult to summit. If one isn’t as mentally fit as they are physically, climbing is an extreme struggle. This struggle is illustrated many times during the book. One of the more pressing mental challenges was to manage you time well. This fear of losing time can be seen when Jon waiting up for the rest of the climbers. “On one occasion Mike Groom, sirdar Ang Dorje, and I sat on a snow-covered ledge for more than forty-five minutes, shivering and punding our hands and feet to ward off frostbite, waiting for the others to arrive. But the squandered time was even more excruciating to bear than the cold.” (pg 2539 kindle version). One other mental test one has to overcome on the mountain was the fact that if you didn’t make it to the top before turn-around time, you had to quietly accept defeat and head back to camp in order to keep the group safe. The hardest psychological hurdles involved with attempting Everest, you won’t even face on the mountain. This is the come to terms with the passing of fellow climbers. It would be easy for one to let the guilt, of not acting faster or getting more people to help them, eat away at them.