Everest was no longer just a motivational cliche, it was also a commercial venture, and those running such ventures had little incentive to turn climbers away, even overly idealistic and incompetent amateurs. Boyhood dreams die hard, I discovered, and good sense be damned" said Krakauer when given the opportunity to make the climb (Krakauer 31). This attitude, on the surface, seems admirable. We as a society admire people who set lofty goals. But setting lofty goals can come at a great cost to others. We sacrifice time with our loved ones to study hard or work late, for example. The climbers on the team sacrificed their time and wages to train and scale the heights of the mountain. Before the expedition met with disaster, friends and loved ones praised many of the climbers for their single-minded pursuit of the peak. This fueled their ambition.

Of course, every time someone sets a goal, there are naysayers. Many friends and loved ones also scoffed that the climbers could not do it, or said that the goal was not high or difficult enough for a seasoned climber, or to merit the risk. Again, because the undaunted pursuit of a goal is idealized, this kind of attitude only motivated the climbers more to pursue their dream, to sacrifice more, and to draw others into their web of ambition. Some of the climbers even knew that their families or loved ones were pulling for them step-by-step -- one climber on the author's first expedition chronicled in the book had an elementary school sell t-shirts to finance his climb. How can you turn back in the face of that kind of support?

But when you pursue your dream, you always have to ask if it is worthy of what you sacrifice for that dream. One Taiwanese expedition that resulted in the death of one of the climbers, and the near-death of two others still had the leader proclaiming: "Victory! Victory! We made summit!'...as if the disaster hadn't even happened" (Krakauer...

Victory of what kind? Victory of the kind of lightheaded, miserable few minutes described at the beginning of Krakauer's book? What human life is worth such a small and insignificant event?
Setting a goal, any goal, is often viewed as a positive, but Into Thin Air demonstrates that this is not always the case. You must ask what you gain through reaching the goal, externally, and internally. In this case, lives were lost and the living participants felt misery, guilt, and embittered afterward. The title of the book is apt, because it reflects the thinness of the mountain's air, the ephemeral nature of human life, as the dead seem to disappear into thin air (two of the bodies were never found), and also how Krakauer's dreams, with all of their feverish childhood intensity evaporated into the air on the summit. His book is a frightening illustration of how easy it is to set the goal of Everest for your personal challenge, provided you have enough money.

True, there are positive things to be learned from the Everest climb. The climb illustrates how no man or woman is an island, as not even the most seasoned climbers can attempt the climb without a guide and considerable financial or technical aid. But most of the lessons to be learned from the climb are negative. The spirit of Into Thin Air can be seen in the lives of athletes who sacrifice their health and good sense, simply to score a goal, to make more money. It can be seen in people who work long hours to make more money than they have time to enjoy. It can be seen in a country that fights to win freedom abroad and limits the free expression and ability to protest of its citizens. Perhaps Everest should die as a metaphor for greatness, and in memory of the dead climbers of Into Thin Air become a metaphor for sacrificing everything for a goal not worth the price.

Works Cited

Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. Anchor 1998.