The highest price for the highest mountain.

In fact, the juxtaposition of Jon Krakauer's book "Into Thin Air” and the autobiography of Beck Weathers "Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest” is quite cruel. It is impossible to compare the reportage, which belongs to the classics of mountain literature and got a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize with an average written story about the life of one of the participants of the tragic trip to Mountain of Mountains.

However, since both books appeared in Poland more or less at the same time, almost simultaneously with the premiere of the film "Everest", and their authors climbed for Everest on this unlucky day in the same team, I stated that I will write about both of them. I just want to admit that only Krakauer's book is about the mountains. Beck Weathers admittedly talks about what happened on Mount Everest, but he devotes about one-third to a book, while the rest of the text is a story of his life before and after the tragedy. It is worth knowing about it, reaching for his book.

Is it worth reading about the next mountain tragedy? Not so long ago I read book about polish climbers as Wanda Rutkiewicz and other women who reached the highest mountains and died there, not all of course but still. Why reach for another story of unsuccessful climbing? Will they shed more light on why people go to high mountains and die there? Will they tell us something new about people who sacrifice their lives to reach the summit?

On May 10, 1996, thirty-four climbers entered Everest. Twelve of them died there, eight took part in two commercial expeditions. In other words - they have paid huge amounts for helping someone safely enter the highest peak of the Earth.

It puts the whole event in a slightly different light. Otherwise, we judge differently professional climbers who constantly risk their lives and have enormous experience, and those who go up, although they may not. Many people condemn them, considering them to be rich, who think that everything can be bought. Reading the books of Krakauer and Weathers we will see that in fact most of them are ordinary people who let themselves take on an extraordinary dream. A trip to Everest often absorbs their lives.

Jon Krakauer took part in an expedition led by Rob Hall, considered the star of commercial expeditions. Rob was thoughtful and well-organized, his expeditions were considered extremely safe. Krakauer, who had been climbing for years, had dreamed of climbing Everest, but he couldn’t afford it. However, the increase in the popularity of entries for money became interesting for the chief magazine "Outside", for which Krakauer worked. He was proposed to go on a commercial expedition as a participant and then write an article about the pros and cons of such trips. The writer didn’t think for a long time, moreover, he decided that he would try to reach the top.

What does this mean for the reader? It is rare for a professional reporter to write a reportage from a high-mountain expedition, who has excellent pen skills, who is also a full participant in a trip and a climber. Jacek Hugo-Bader went to Broad Peak and wrote a very good, though controversial, book, but he was always just someone from outside who doesn’t fully understand the world of climbers. In addition, Krakauer not only took part in the Everest expedition, but also became an involuntary participant and witness to one of the greatest tragedies that took place on the slopes of the mountain.

His book was published six months after returning from Nepal, when the emotions haven’t cooled down yet. Krakauer tries to find out the truth about what happened, explaining the inaccuracies and even straightening out his own previous relations. He also struggles with guilt - he survived, while his companions were killed, and he isn’t sure if he did everything he could.

The story of Beck Weathers is one of the most amazing stories about what a man can survive. Weathers dazzled while climbing, then got lost in the snowstorm and almost froze, the other climbers looking for the lost one found him the next day and left him for certain death with absolute certainty that he couldn’t be saved. He, however, survived another night in the cold and the next morning woke up and gathered strength enough that he managed to reach the camp on his own. There he fell again in the tent, and his friends were sure he was dead, and he again gave them a surprise the next morning. His fate also haunts Krakauer, who feels guilty for not taking care of him more carefully.

But can you take care of someone carefully, if you just got together in a terrible snowstorm from the highest peak of the world? Reading the next books about the mountains confirms my belief that it isn’t always possible, and that you cannot blame a man who hasn’t managed, even if there are others who have. This unlucky day on the slopes of Everest killed those who had the most experience and who should have saved others. Perhaps this is why their clients haven’t noticed in time that the rescued should become rescuers - in the thin air the brain doesn’t work so smoothly and it is hard to notice that the man who was our climbing guru stands on the verge of life and death.

Interestingly, even those who saved lives were exposed to harsh criticism. Krakauer didn’t approve of several things that the guide of the competitive team, Anatoly Bukhayev, did. This, however, saved at least two people and very badly withdrew the delicate words of criticism. He wrote his own book, which, doesn’t present events in a credible way. Krakauer's relation is also undermined, and he himself admits that memory can be unreliable and that some participants of events change their stories.

"Into Thin Air” thus becomes not only a book about mountain tragedy, but also an interesting contribution to reflection on how our brain processes the events in which we participated. Can we trust our own memory? And how to properly recognize what has happened on Everest, if the participants themselves are not sure what they saw?

For me, this is also a book about dreams. You don’t enter Everest because you have tens of thousands of dollars to spent. Even during the safest trip you can die, but still thousands of people take up this challenge. And although reading such books will quite tempt the enthusiasm, I am a little jealous of those who try to make their dreams come true and just go there.

But what happens to the man who went and miraculously survived? How can you get together and settle your life after such a tragedy? If this aspect interests you, go to Weathers' book. Divided into three parts, he talks about the climbing, then about the life of his and his wife before Everest, and finally about how they saved their marriage and got back on his return. This isn’t a fascinating relations and sometimes is even boring, but it complements what is missing in many mountain books. It's worth to get to know it, if only to be aware of how long shadow can cast an eight-thousander - climbing changes a person for a lifetime, even if after a miraculous rescue he casts this activity.

About what happened on May 10, 1996 on Everest, are we’re written more books and I admit that I would gladly reach for further, comparing different points of view can be very interesting. For this reason, though, Weathers' book can’t compare with Krakauer's reportage in the slightest, but it is worth reading it in order to gain a fuller picture of the whole story.

And of course you can see the movie from 2015 if you didn’t see it yet.

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