Post 2 - Ian Woodall

There are a multitude of different types of characters in this story, some being heroic, some looking for media attention, and one man coming off as a complete jerk, this man would be Ian Woodall, the leader of the South African team. For a short period of time, Ian Woodall was known for being a heroic leader and an inspiration to South Africa. He was supposed to lead an expedition to represent the end of the apartheid, which would have climbers who were white and black, and also have a woman on the team.   However, the expedition was held up when it was revealed that Woodall had lied about who he was actually bringing on the expedition. He was also caught for lying to people about what nationality he really was, saying that he was from South Africa, when really he was British. This shows that Woodall is not a trustworthy leader. Later, Krakauer heard that some of the climbers from the South African team had resigned before arriving at the mountain because Woodall was a "jerk" and did not trust him with their lives. Woodall had not proved to be trustworthy in the past so that is understandable. For an expedition to go well all teams must cooperate with each other. One team being selfish can lead to the downfall in everyone. Ian Woodall does not cooperate with the other teams well. He is all about himself and does not know how to work together well. A vital issue in climbing Everest is the day you will summit. If too many teams summit on the same day their will be traffic and can be very dangerous to every one. Hall and Fisher's teams both collaborated with all the other teams and decided to summit on May 10th, but when Woodall was asked what day they would summit he said whenever they wished, probably on May 10th as well "and anyone who didn't like it could bugger off" (pg 147). This is an extremely selfish move by Woodall and could be very dangerous for all the climbers. We will see if Woodall's selfishness will lead to a downfall in many climbers.