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John Krakauer Analysis

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Annually, 1 in 1,750 people die while climbing mountains. Both authors, John Krakauer and Erik Weihenmayer, have successfully reached the summit during their climbing experience. John Krakauer climbed the Devils Thumb located in Alaska. Erik Weihenmayer climbed Mt. Everest located in Nepal. Even though both of these climbers reached the top, their experiences while doing it were very different. This essay will talk about the similarities and differences between the author’s perspective, the organizational structure, and the tone of their stories. John was a very experienced climber, since he has been climbing from a young age. This climb was not like other climbing expeditions because he went alone. He states, “I had no radio, nor any other …show more content…

He doesn’t think about all the consequences and the dangerous things that could occur to him. He shows his braveness by climbing the mountain all alone. Eventually, once he realizes how dangerous it is, he starts to question if he should keep going or turn back. “I carried no rope, no tent or bivouac gear, no hardware save my ice axes.”, he stated. This shows how he will do it alone and even without proper equipment. Unlike John, Erik and his team were properly equipped the whole way up. It seems they had this planned ahead of time unlike John’s in the moment decision. His words show how he never wanted to descend from the mountain. He even felt bad for those of his team who did have to turn back. Erik, even with his disability, had only positive thoughts and words to say to his team. In the end, both, John and Erik, succeeded to reach the summit of the mountains they climbed. They both were very brave and motivated through all the obstacles that crossed their path. Even though they had different disadvantages and problems they both wanted it very badly. They gave their all to complete the task they set out to do from the start. They are both very strong, brave, and courageous

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Jon Krakauer is looking to fulfill a childhood ambition by finally climbing Mount Everest. After being assigned to write a brief piece about the mountain for Outside magazine, Krakauer manages to convince his bosses to fund a full-fledged expedition to the top. Bold. Krakauer is climbing with Adventure Consultants, a commercial group led by experienced climber Rob Hall. The journalist befriends several members of his group, such as Andy Harris, a guide, and Doug Hansen, a fellow client and postal worker back home.

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Many of them are inexperienced and would undoubtedly never make it to the top without a guide. The one unifying characteristic shared by all of the climbers is that they have money—enough to shell out $65,000 a piece for their shot at the top. Krakauer spends long chapters giving his best, most educated guesses about why climbers made certain decisions, and what happened to the people who disappeared. This is an exercise that must result in major frustration, as no one can be entirely sure what took place. Many mistakes later, Krakauer manages to piece together an outline of what happened to whom and when during the climb, but the questions he struggles with in almost every situation are "why" and "how".

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, it is important to note that the characters portrayed in this book are real people. The unique conditions and the weather of the setting forced the climbers to make choices that they could not have made in a different situation. The tough choices made by the climbers and the setting influenced the result of the story. Krakauer’s tone for the most part is respectful toward the guides and climbers, and he narrates as objectively as possible, while including his own concerns and doubts. His tone in the beginning expresses excitement and nervousness, but later turns into

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79) (Simile). "The wind kicked up huge swirling waves of powder snow that washed down the mountain like breaking surf, plastering my clothing with frost." (pg. 125) (Simile).These smilies really compare, and show the reader the harsh conditions the climbers faced everyday. The main paradox in the book is that experience and preparation ultimately means nothing on Mt. Everest. In particular, no one thought that such a tragedy could occur on an expedition guided by Rob Hall, the most celebrated Everest guide dog of the decade.

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As the author writes, it comes clear to the reader of how much completing this climb means to him and how determined he is to go through with it and conquer the climb, but he also shows his excitement throughout the journey. “Wind and horizontal snow takedown our suits and covered us with a layer of ice,” one example stated by Weihenmayer that the climb was very difficult, but the team had to push through with determination. Throughout the story, Weihenmayer explains every tough situation of the climb, like this one, that he had to struggle to overcome. He continues to push through to complete the climb because of his determination and with every obstacle conquered his excitement is visible. As Weihenmayer stated, ‘“We’re on the top.

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When Krakauer was nine years old Unsoeld, a family friend and an incredibly successful mountaineer, shared tales of his adventures causing Jon to have a deep fascination with mountaineering. This started his lifelong love affair with Everest. Jon’s dream of Everest was fulfilled when Krakauer was chosen to summit, with the Rob Hall's expedition, in order to write an article for Outside magazine. During that trip to the summit Jon Krakauer faced a horrible storm that cost many lives.

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He went there with his friends and family, during the climb a rain storm struck them, but nothing could stop him from summiting the mountain. After facing so much trouble on the mountain, Philip Simmons did not let his disease and the storm defeat him. As the author says, “It was as though I had been privileged with a glimpse of my own death, and found it the most terrible and beautiful thing I had ever seen “(Simmons 1243). When he was young, the author was afraid of going down the stairs without his mother, and Simmons made a brave decision when he had to do it on his own. From his childhood, the author is very brave, and this reminds me of my

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David and his team had been climbing Everest and doing the IMAX film at the same time the other three expeditions had been climbing Everest in 1996. On the morning of May 10th his expedition team as well as himself had made it to the summit and were able to capture amazing shots on the summit with clear blue skies for their film. During the time that they were climbing down from the summit, they had passed many people from the other expeditions, whom they would be later rescuing. When David had made it to camp two, the storm had started. Even though his own life was at risk, he had put his 5.5 million dollar film at risk and decided to help rescue people on Everest.

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He was able to get to the top of the mountain to complete his journey and his article for the

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Doug worked two different jobs to afford to go on the trip to Everest, and was making his second attempt to reach the summit of Everest. Doug came back to Everest to try and reach the summit for the first time. Because Doug failed to reach the summit on his first attempt, I argue that Doug Hansen’s primary motivation

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This report tells about Kendal’s fear of the summit. Kendal was really scared so how did she get deal with this?. Was it a dangerous climb or was it really easy?. Did Kendal and the others get down safely or not?.

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On the very first day, I injured my ankle, but I refused to back down in spite of the tougher-than-expected terrain. I wedged sticks vertically into my boot to support my ankle, and continued hiking on the unpredictable terrain. On the fourth day, I hiked through hail, high winds, and ice over the optimistically named Blood Mountain. I arrived at the base of the mountain with frost on my clothes, weak legs, and tears on my face, but my resolve didn’t waver. In fact, I didn’t truly consider ending my hike until I hiked all the way to Pennsylvania.

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505 Words | 3 Pages

When the Worlds in your Hands In 2011 at Bucknell University, Erik Weihenmayer gave a speech about all the challenges in his life and how he overcame them. Erik also says about what the graduating students look on life is and again how to overcome them. Erik Weihenmayer is a blind man that climbed Mount Everest in 2001 and every highest mountain on each continent. As a child Erik had retinoschisis, a rare disease that made him go blind at the age of 13.

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492 Words | 2 Pages

Everest. He knew the people in the past who attempted to do this task weren't so fortunate. He also knew that it would be even more difficult being that he was blind and knowing the mountain wasn't going to let up on him. Erik had an ample amount of time to give up and quit, He could have made excuses for himself and backed out last minute. Helen Keller would probably commend Weihnmayer if she was here today.

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607 Words | 3 Pages

None of these people were forced to climb the mountain, especially Hansen climbing the mountain his second time. There was a specific rule that the turnaround time was at 2 pm, no matter where you are on the mountain you go back to camp, that was the rule. Hansen should have started to turn back to camp, but since he wasn 't able to reach the summit his first time he didn 't want to go back down again. So he kept on going past the turnaround time. This leads Hansen to make a serious mistake pushing for the summit despite it being way later than the agreed upon turnaround time.

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