Summary
In this chapter, Krakauer pieces together what happened to other climbers on the summit that day. Beidleman and his client Adams join Harris and Boukreev at the summit shortly after Krakauer turns around to descend. According to the Mountain Madness plan, Lopsang was to lead the group and fix ropes while Fischer brought up the rear and assumed responsibility for turning clients around if their progress was too slow. But as the middle guides, Beidleman and Boukreev have no radio to communicate with Lopsang or Fischer, who have both fallen behind and failed to fulfill their duties. By 2:10pm, Lopsang and five of Fischer’s clients reach the summit, followed by Hall, Groom, and Namba from Krakauer’s team. Hall radios Base Camp to confirm their ascent, unleashing a flurry of faxes to friends and family around the world announcing their triumph. Fisher and Hansen are still below the summit, however, and wouldn’t reach it until around 4:00pm, well beyond the ideal 1-2:00pm turnaround window.
Fischer’s energetic demeanor over the past few weeks belied his mental and physical exhaustion from leading the Mountain Madness expedition. Unbeknownst to most of the climbers, he suffered from a chronic liver condition that caused short but debilitating spells of fever when his body was under increased stress. Krakauer speculates that this may have contributed to Fischer’s lagging pace on summit day. Just past 3:00pm, Beidelman decides that he can’t wait for Fischer any longer and begins descending with five clients. Pittman struggles, fading in and out of lucidity and requiring a shot of steroids and extra oxygen to continue under her own power. About 500 feet below, Beidelman, his clients, Groom, and Namba run into Weathers, still standing alone and almost completely blind. Grooms decides to short-rope Weathers, carefully guiding his steps across the dangerous ridge, but Namba soon runs out of oxygen and refuses to move, while Weathers becomes too weak to walk on his own. Beidelman’s group eventually catches up to Groom’s, and Beidleman starts dragging Namba while Groom supports Weathers on his shoulder. By 6:45pm, the group of two guides, seven clients, and two Sherpas is descending as one and opts to go around the icy slope above Camp Four, rather than attempt sliding down it as Krakauer and Harris had done. The blizzard reaches peak intensity as the group reaches the South Col, the plateau where Camp Four is located. But with visibility at zero, they become disoriented and wander aimlessly for hours. Desperate, Beidleman instructs them all to huddle together and wait for a break in the storm, which obscures all signs of the camp just 1,000 horizontal feet away. At this point, everyone has run out of oxygen and the wind chill exceeds negative 100 degrees Celsius.
At Camp Four, Hutchinson, who had given up his bid long before, notices that many people are still missing; he goes out banging pots and pans in a futile attempt to guide people back to camp. Krakauer is too weak and impaired to realize the situation and assist him. Shortly before midnight, the storm finally begins winding down. Beidleman, Groom, the Sherpas, and clients Schoening and Gammelgard renew their search for camp while clients Madsen, Fox, Namba, Weathers, and Pittman stay behind and await a rescue party. Beidleman’s group limps into Camp Four 20 minutes later, alerting Boukreev to the location of the remaining clients. Boukreev had hiked ahead of his team and safely reached Camp Four by 5:00pm. He would later be accused of negligence for leaving his clients far behind, a decision that he justified by saying that he was of greater use well-rested and available to run emergency supplies up from Camp Four if they were needed. He indeed made a valiant attempt to go out and find Beidleman’s group during the height of the blizzard, but without a radio he had no real hope of locating them. Boukreev has to make two trips into the still-stormy night before he is able to find the remaining clients. By the time he reaches them, Namba appears to be already dead. Boukreev starts leading the rest back to camp one by one, but Weathers disappears into the night in a moment of mindless wandering. Except for Weathers and Namba, the recuse operation is complete by 4:30am. Beidleman breaks down and weeps upon hearing of Namba’s death.
Krakauer wakes up the morning of May 11 and is shocked to learn that Harris is nowhere to be found. He remembers seeing Harris slide down the final slope and make his way towards camp before being obscured by clouds, but he realizes that in blizzard conditions Harris could have still strayed off the path. He finds a set of tracks leading to a cliff edge near camp and falls to his knees in grief. Krakauer later hears that Weathers and Namba are dead, Fischer is missing, and Hall is alive but stranded on the summit. The team’s radio dies, cutting off communication with Hall; Woodall, camped nearby, refuses to allow them to use his radio to coordinate a rescue.
In his research for the Outside magazine feature, Krakauer recalls talking to as many people as possible to get his facts straight. Adams, however, avoided him until after the piece went to press. When they finally connected, Adams recounted his descent from the summit, including bumping into a mysterious hiker who pointed him down an icy slope to the location of Camp Four. Horrified, Krakauer realized that in his debilitated state he had failed to recognize Adams that night, mistaking him for Harris. This revelation meant that the story he had published of Harris falling to his death was in fact false, an inaccuracy that likely compounded the pain felt by Harris’s family and friends. Amid feelings of guilt, Krakauer recalls wondering what really did happen to Harris.
Analysis
With climbers spread out across the upper mountain, Krakauer brings the story back to the summit in Chapter 15 to chronicle the descent of Biedelman’s group. Of course, this narrative structure is necessary to fully tell the story, but it also produces a powerful emotional impact on the reader. Having just followed Krakauer’s detailed, harrowing descent to the relative safety of Camp Four, the reader is forced to essentially repeat this experience with Biedelman’s group. The effect is mentally exhausting, especially with the knowledge that a later start means an even lower chance of survival. Employing this repetitive narrative structure ultimately serves to reinforce the severity and hopelessness of the situation.
Writing after the fact, Krakauer uses his hindsight to emphasize just how unpredictable and improbable it was to escape the summit alive that day. Hall’s call down to Base Camp proclaiming 'mission accomplished' is grossly premature, and it shows how quickly apparent success can turn to unimaginable tragedy. Similarly, revelations of Fischer’s debilitating illness and Boukreev’s unilateral decision to hike far ahead of the group show how even the best planning and preparation can’t account for individual faults. But perhaps the most painful moment is knowing that Camp Four lay just 1,000 horizontal feet away from the spot where Biedleman’s group stopped for the night. That meager distance—1,000 feet—is a powerful symbol of the razor-thin line that divides life from death on the slopes of Mt. Everest. The confusion and raw emotion of surviving that night is depicted both in the story’s present at Camp Four and in its future back in Seattle. Krakauer’s recollection of his extreme guilt upon discovering that he misreported Harris’s death in Outside magazine shows the heavy emotional toll that he continues to carry and the lingering inability to process his own role in the tragedy.
