Blog #28

On the expedition to the summit of Mount Everest, unexpected events occurred and the weather made the specific day on Everest a complete disaster. Of course being a part of the team going to the summit, Krauker is obviously allowed to have his opinions on the tragic day, but he took it a little too far. On May 10^th there were different scenarios and situations that could have led to the different fatalities, but saying that it was one person’s fault is a little out of the question. Being entitled to your own opinion is great but having that authority over other people is definitely out of the question.

Krauker was given the job of writing an article for Outside Magazine that gave the story of the summit climb on May 10^th and of course he is entitled to his opinion, but blaming some of the people for the deaths and also their own deaths was a little extreme. There were many deaths that day on the mountain, but two of the stories that were excluded from this story that would have been beneficial would have been from the two guides Hall and Fischer. Saying that it was there own fault that they had died on the mountain is so uncalled for and in my opinion was unnecessary.

“Hall had become so adept at running climbers of varying abilities up and down Everest that he may have become a little cocky. He'd bragged on more than one occasion that he could get almost any reasonably fit person to the summit, and his record seemed to support this. He'd also demonstrated a remarkable ability to manage adversity.” This statement in the original article was unnecessary and was not needed as a summary of the event that had happened that day. Of course Hall had the confidence that he could make it to the top and most people would want to feel safe in the hands of their guide saying that they can help them make it to the top of the summit. After all, that is what each and every client had been paying them thousands of dollars for. Every client that he had would have wanted to know that he had that confidence and would be able to successfully guide him or her to the summit. His “cocky” personality was not the reason for his death and the other deaths that had occurred that day.

Another one of Krauker’s reasoning’s behind the deaths on the summit was the supposed rivalry between Hall and Fischer. “In a certain sense, they may have been playing chicken up there, each guide plowing ahead with one eye on the clock, waiting to see who was going to blink first and turn around.” Hall and Fischer were friends and even though they had some rivalry did not mean that was one of the reasons for all or some of the deaths on the summit.

Truthfully, I believe that there was no one to blame on this expedition. There was no one at fault and no one could have done anything about what had happened. The accusations that Krauker had made about the people that had made mistakes and were at fault behind the event, were completely unfair and he was unright to make those statements about those people. There were people that had their own struggles and being at an altitude of three miles above sea level caused thought process and decision making to be unstable.