Final Week - IR Blog Post 3 (Into Thin Air)

I connect with the pride of not using supplement oxygen. In any first person shooter game, there is always an overpowered weapon. People that tend to use them are people who are not good and need all the help they can get and therefore get a lot of hate. But instead of using those weapons, I would use underused weapons to feel proud and "better" than everyone else. Instead of being that guy who uses extra help, overpowered gun or oxygen, I would be that guy who doesn't use the extra help, using the "bad" gun or not using the oxygen.

But at the end of the game, I would lose the game, or in this case, lose a life because of lack of oxygen, ultimately lack of self-pride.

All of this comes back to social perception. You want to look good in front of peers or your competitors by doing the unexpected or not being handicapped. But sometimes having to big of an ego can easily blow up your head and become fatal.

I guess the overall theme idea that I got from this book is that the only opinion that matters is your own. Yes, a special someone can change your mind, but to the general public, it's only you that matters. And of course always bring extra oxygen when climbing the tallest mountain in the world.

Final Week - IR Blog Post 2 (Into Thin Air)

Themes/Ideas
During the descent, Jon is low on oxygen and it starts to show. He thinks he saw Andy but he was mistaken. So he tells everyone that Harris is fine, when actually no one knows where he is. All of this happens because he begins to lose his senses and starts to hallucinate. So oxygen is a catalyst to the problems of this story. Also Jon is so used to the fact that Andy is always beside him that he gets mixed up.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/236362-brain-effects-of-no-oxygen/
This site gives some side effects of lack of oxygen.

But even when climbers are suffering from hypoxia, they move one because of pride. Andy Hall does not stop Doug Hansen from climbing to the top even after the turn around point has past because he stopped Doug last year from climbing the last hundred feet. Doug was disappointed and does not want the opportunity to slip away again.

Final Week - IR Blog Post 1 (Into Thin Air)

People
Jon Krakauer
Andy Harris - Missing
Doug Hansen - Missing
Fischer - lacking oxygen
IMAX Team - helping the ones who lived
Reporting Team

Events
The first thing that happens in this section is that Krakauer realizes one of the guides falls of the edge of the mountain, Andy Harris. Jon thought that he saw him go to his tent but he actually slipped past and ended up off falling off. (But the story goes off on a tangent saying that Krakauer actually never saw Harris that night and mistook him for someone else. So he has immense guilt insuring everyone that he was fine when actuality no one knows.) This is the beginning of the terror of all day and night. Many more guides and climbers go missing and many are found dead.
Overall many people are in desperate need of oxygen during the descent. It becomes a dash to the camp trying to get oxygen to the people in dire need.
A climber is severing tremendous oxygen loss that he is questioning his life. "I [Fischer] am very sick, too sick to go down. I am going to jump." (297) He is, though, talked out of it.
Climbers are being left behind because everyone is lacking the strength to even carry themselves.
It is a devastating conclusion when Jon realizes that half the people that climbed up are going down. About 25 went missing or died.
As the remaining team gets to base camp, Jon is emotionally distraught from the terrors he suffered through on the mountain. This climb will remain with him for the rest of his life.

Places
Still Mt. Everest and all the camps

Week 3 - IR Blog Post 3 (Into Thin Air)

I understand that Jon was running low on oxygen, but why wouldn't he at least take in the view of being at the summit and just take a second to soak it in? All he does is acknowledge that he made it and starts his climb down. If I were to be in the top of the world I would be celebrating, taking pictures and just look out over the world. I guess lack of oxygen does affect you that much.

I find it ironic about how many people would love to be on the top of the world. While on the ground, he couldn't wait to be on the top of the world, but as soon as he was at the summit, all he was thinking about was how he couldn't wait to be on the ground.

Jon talks about how he notices that the climbers are all isolated from each other climbing on their own. But as the top is nearing, they become "intertwined". Again I will bring up the Tennis team comparison. Last year, and even this year, a the season started, we were functioning as separate gears instead of one coherent machine. But as States neared and bigger matches drew closer, we bonded more. We bonded due to the fact of the finish line and that goal, just like the climbers.

Week 3 - IR Blog Post 2 (Into Thin Air)

(196) When Andy Harris gets hit by that boulder.
When I read this, the first thing that came into my mind was that the climb must end right there, but of course a little less than half the book is left. Then I thought that this is foreshadowing a bad event in the future. Andy is one of the guides and losing him would be like losing a wheel on your car, you just can't go any further. It is evident that the other climbers become worried as well. This event just symbolizes how important a guide or an expert climber is for the climbers and the success of the trip.

Oxygen - To the average person, oxygen mean life, without it, you can not survive. but to an over achieving climber, bringing oxygen tanks during the climb is basically cheating. To be a true climber, you should not bring supplements of oxygen. It kind of represents a climber's pride.

Trust - Again a huge theme in the story. This time, trust is slowly fading away. "I [Krakauer]felt disconnected from the climbers around me—emotionally, spiritually, physically—to a degree I hadn't experienced on any previous expedition…Each client was in it for himself or herself…" (213). Certainly not a good thing to think about when you have 50 climbers around you and you life is on the ropes, literally.
But the closer and close the team gets to the summit, the more tighter the bond gets between the climbers. Jon states that the climbers are becoming "intertwined".

http://www.everestnews.com/everest2006/ecueverest06202006.htm
This insane climber decides to climb Everest without oxygen and without a sherpa, indigenous people of the mountain that can help on the climb. But he does make it and is ecstatic, completely opposite reaction of Jon.

Week 3 - IR Blog Post 1 (Into Thin Air)

People
Jon Krakauer - Narrator and Author
Swedish climber, Goran Kropp - He is climbing for the summit and is only a few hundred feet away but decides to turn around because he is physically beat. Jon commemorates him for being able to turn around when the summit is in his sights.
Scott Fischer - One of the expert climbers and is exhausted after a day of climbing because he needed to help struggling climbers. He is a little mad about it, but he says that it is a price you need to play to do the job.
Chen Nu-Yan - Taiwanese climber that dies during the final climb. He actually was already feeling pains, but decided to go on. This decision was proven to be fatal.
Rob Hall - basically the man that is making all the calls.

Places
Mt. Everest, Base Camp, Camp 1, Camp 2, Camp 3, Camp 4, Summit
Col - A flat area on the summit between Camp 4 and the Summit. It is a place to rest up before the final ascent.
The Death Zone - Area between Col and Summit. Basically point of no return, you must make it up the summit quickly before your oxygen runs out.
Hillary Step - Area between The Death Zone and Summit. A vertical wall that is feared by even the best of climbers.


Events
Andy Harris, a guide, gets hit by a falling boulder on the chest and has to turn around. The climb is postponed.

May 8th is one of the team's ascending days and Jon accounts that Frank will be one of climbers to make it to the summit. Surprisingly Frank comes back hurt and struggling to catch his breath.

Jon Krakauer makes it to the summit, but oddly, does not feel joy or elation, but fear of the climb back down. He is running really low on oxygen and does not think he can climb back down due to the slower climbers.
But he does climb back down, having to wait for climbers. He asks Andy Harris is turn down the valve to preserve oxygen, but Harris mistakenly opens it even more. Jon is out of oxygen in 10 minutes. A little while, Jon realizes that Andy is suffering from hypoxia, or altitude-related impaired judgment, and now is suffering himself.

A blizzard picks up while they are descending. Many get lost and a few die.

R.A.F.T. Peru

**3,4,6,3

Me talking to me in the form of a tweet about Peru**

Well Jon, Che and Alberto are experiencing troubled waters in Peru, not as friendly as Chile and Argentina. At least they are not huge bums like before, still bums though.