Throughout the whole book they have been keeping the reader updated with the heights of the mountain and telling stories of peoples adventures throughout Nepal. When the book first starts off actually they state how they are on the summit of Mount Everest on may 10, 1996 and that they are 29,028 feet above sea level. (page 5 cover)
When they would get into details it made me wonder about breathing. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to breathe at such a high altitude. Even though they have special things to help them with breathing it would still be difficult especially since they have an old woman shooting to be the oldest person to climb. A person would have to have strong lungs to be able to do this climb over and over so I give props to the people who run camps and give tours as an everyday job. According to list25 there are over 200 dead bodies on mount Everest which is really freaky to think about.
Hey bro, nice post I thought I might add to it. Throughout the book, Krakauer says the team will stay in lodges for weeks at a time. This made me wonder just how long it takes to climb Everest. After some research I found that it takes as long as 6-9 weeks, mostly because it takes so long to carry all the supplies and secure the ropes and other things. Hope you enjoyed my polished turd of knowledge!
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I find it interesting how you noticed that it might be really hard to breath on Mt Everest. It might be kind of heavy to carry all those tanks, adding weight to their packs and making the climbers even more tired. At one point, the woman was having trouble using her tank. They didn't want to have to stop climbing just for one person. That seems unreasonable, especially if they were friends. But since they all just met on the tour, most climbers didn't want to go back and give up all that money they saved because of some stranger.
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