As the book progressed the tone of the book slowly turned to shockingly horrifying. As Krakauer heads down the mountain hes mind starts to get disorganized and lax. He so exhausted that it gets hard for him to think straight. So much so that he lets his own friend Andy Harris walk straight into a snow storm without thinking of checking on him. The next morning the horrifying truth comes out. Krakauer woke up to Stuart Hutchison shaking him awake telling him the horrifying news that Andy Harris isn't is his tent. "I realized, however, that if he hadn't turned left but instead continued straight down the gull...Standing there, afraid to move any closer to the edge, I noticed a single set of faint crampons." (228) In the last chapter everyone seemed fine but in this chapter it took a huge turn. The second the reader reads this part the tone is supposed to make everyone feel shocked and intrusting in what the main characters sees, leaving everyone with the question is what we read the truth of not. When Krakauer reflects back on the past summit at camp four, the aftereffects really hit Krakauer and the reader. "After having spent an hour scouring the South Col for Andy Harris; the search left me convinced that he was dead...Rob Hall on the South Summit made it clear that our leader was in desperate straits and that Doug Hansen was dead.....Yusko Namba and Beck Weathers were dead. And Scott Fischer and Makalu Gau were believed to be dead." This is unbelievable, pretty much every main character except for Krakauer were either dead or on the verge of death. The book just hits where it hurts. While reading the book its hard to keep track of just how many people died but when this book tallies it up, its terrifying.
As I had read the last third of the book, the winds became a huge deciding factor for the whole team. In the book the winds are described as being fierce. According to Mt. Everest Informtation(http://www.teameverest03.org/everest_info/) the winds at Mount Everest are as strong as a hurricane and are up to 118+ miles per hour. This jet stream is constant at 4-6 miles above Earth leaving the top of Mount Everest with a stream of ice crystals blowing off from the summit. The winds change direction and depending on the direction of these winds and how strong they are people choose when they want to climb Mount Everest. That's what happened with Krakauers crew, the winds changed and brought in a storm, a storm that they weren't ready for. The winds on Mount Everest can be unpredictable and dangerous and in the case of Krakauers crew the winds were just to powerful.
I can agree with you that the reader feels shock when reading about the horrendous accidents and mishaps that fateful day on Everest, however I disagree about the tone itself being shocking. As I read the end of the memoir, I was greeted with a feeling of hopelessness and regret that would not, in my opinion, constitute as shock. As the events begin to fall into place, most of the characters seem to be described with a slow pacing, as if the whole world has begun to spin more slowly than its usual axis. On page 289, the recount between Viesturs and Fischer's body appears simply melancholy and helpless. Viesturs' seemingly lonely encounter with his friend's corpse is a symbol for the somber acceptance that most of the mountaineers undergo in these last few chapters. Instead of shock, this passage struck me with a loneliness so strong I thought I too was up there kneeling next to Fischer's body, wondering what went wrong. Another example of the somber helplessness is when Krakauer is lying in bed in the hotel room, and he gets high to numb the pain he feels inside. This passage is especially lonely, and not so much 'shocking.' Overall, I think that Jon's helpless sadness is demonstrated perfectly throughout the depressing ending of the awry Everest climb.
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