One of my favorite books of all time is Jon Krakauer’s white-knuckle ride about climbing to the summit of Mount Everest, Into Thin Air. So it was with a confusing push-pull mixture of great apprehension and magnetic compulsion that I’ve been looking at for several days, but not clicking the link, to the post Abandoned on Everest. There are, in fact, over 200 riveting comments on the HN entry.
Shame that the blog’s background image shines through the post images, but “Abandoned” is a hell of a post. The post it an unbelievable read and there is really nothing I can add to it. Except to say that the thing I think I found most disturbing of all was the comment on the original post from a 13-year-old girl saying she is in training for Everest and thanked the blogger for the post.
An area along the northeast route to the summit has earned the unassuming nickname of “Rainbow Valley”, simply because of the multicolored down jackets of the numerous corpses littering the hillside. Even in the harsh conditions of lethal altitudes, corpses can remain for decades, some appearing frozen in time with climbing gear intact. [Link.]
I totally love Into Thin Air. Completely amazing book!