Many people worried that these guiding companies would put profit before safety by allowing sub-par climbers to join their groups to bring in revenue or by pushing to get climbers to the top even in adverse circumstances to pump up their summiting statistics for prospective future clients. Doug Hanson, one of the climbers in Krakauer’s group, was making his third attempt to get to the top of Everest. Between the expensive climbing permits required by Nepal and Tibet and the companies’ guiding fees, these days it costs about $65,000 a person to climb Everest…and this is not even a guarantee that you’ll get to the top. Since Sir Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest in 1953, climbing expedition companies had sprung up worldwide, offering to bring anyone who was reasonably fit and wanted to climb Everest to the top… for a price. In 1996, Jon Krakauer was hired by Outside Magazine to do a piece on the commercialization of Everest.

Amazingly, most say it is harder to get down from Everest than it is to get to the top. Those who want to climb Everest contend not only with pricey climbing fees and difficult technical climbing challenges, but also face the more serious possible dangers of judgement-impairing hypoxia from the thin atmosphere, frostbite, cerebral or pulmonary edema from ascending or descending too fast, and visibility limiting blizzards that pummel the summit. Its amazing beauty and dangerous heights have attracted thrill-seeking climbers for decades, despite the grim statistics stating that one in four Everest climbers may lose their lives in their quest. Snow blankets the summit year round, and high-altitude winds blow the snow away from the peak in a plume. It is located on the border of Nepal and Tibet, and its iconic triangular peak pierces the sky at an amazing 29,028 feet, just slightly lower than commercial aircraft routinely fly. Mount Everest is the world’s tallest mountain, and perhaps its most famous.

Jon krakauer mount everest