Jon Krakauer was reporting on the commercialization of Mt. Everest for Outside back in 1996 when a sudden storm killed eight people, including four people in the group Krakauer was climbing with. His reporting became the bestselling book “Into Thin Air.”
Krakauer has written a fascinating essay for the New Yorker’s web site on the avalanche last week that claimed at least 13 lives on Everest. In it, he notes that famed Everest tour leader Russell Brice (who was the star of the Discovery Channel’s multi-season series on climbing Everest) had become so alarmed about the dangers of a avalanche back in 2012 that he pulled all of his clients off the mountain.
More on this eventually, but this is an important addition to the media narrative about the excitement and dangers of Everest, and the high level of danger that the climbing sherpas are exposed to.