Into Thin Air: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Neal Beidleman reaches the summit around 1:25 pm with his client, Martin Adams. There, they find Andy Harris and Anatoli Boukreev (Krakauer departed eight minutes previously). Beidleman is an aerospace engineer, as well as one of the strongest climbers in the group; however, he’s conscious of being “third in the pecking order,” after Fischer and Boukreev.

The three guides—Fischer, Boukreev, and Beidleman—know that they need to tell their clients to come down before they reached the top of the mountain; it’s getting later in the day, and it isn’t safe to continue climbing. Even though Fischer has said that he’ll tell his clients to climb down, he never does; nor, it would seem, does Hall. Instead, the clients continue ascending. Sandy Pittman arrives at the top of Everest at 2:10, followed by many of the other clients. Doug Hansen doesn’t make it to the summit until 4 pm.

Krakauer flashes back to the previous day, May 9. That afternoon, Fischer began to feel ill, but didn’t tell anyone. He was exhausted from the non-stop climbing, but, because he was a strong, proud person, he didn’t tell anyone how he was feeling. Fischer also declined to tell his clients that he had a cyst in his liver, which gave him bouts of acute physical distress.

The morning of May 10, Fischer gets up early and begins climbing toward the summit. Around 1 pm, on the way up, he crosses paths with Martin Adams and Anatoli Boukreev, as well as Krakauer and Andy Harris. Although Fischer is visibly exhausted and sickly-looking, nobody thinks that he’s in trouble.

By 3:10 pm on May 10, Fischer still hasn’t made it to the summit. Beidleman, who is waiting for Fischer to join him, is getting worried. Around the same time, Pittman begins to suffer from severe altitude sickness; she nearly passes out. Beidleman orders a client to give Pittman her oxygen tank; with the extra oxygen, Pittman finds the strength to resume the descent.

Around 5 pm on May 10, Mike Groom and Yasuko Namba arrive at the Balcony; by this time, there is a heavy storm. Groom notices Martin Adams climbing down in the wrong direction (toward Tibet). Groom realizes that Adams is suffering from oxygen deprivation, and points Adams in the direction of the tents. Then, Groom notices Beck, still standing by the Balcony, waiting for Mike. Groom guides Beck toward the tents, accompanied by some of Fischer’s other clients. As Groom guides the clients back to the tents, Namba’s oxygen runs out; she falls to the ground, and refuses to keep moving. As Groom tries to convince Namba to keep moving, Neal Beidleman shows up and begins “dragging Namba down toward Camp Four.” By this time it is 6:45 pm, and nearly dark. In the heavy storm, visibility is less than twenty feet. Ordinarily, Beidleman and Groom would be less than fifteen minutes from Camp Four; however, in the storm, it’s almost impossible for them to reach their destination. For two hours, Beidleman, Groom, and the seven clients “staggered blindly around in the storm.” The group is terrified—they’ve run out of oxygen, and it’s getting colder.

Back at Camp Four, Krakauer is sitting in his tent, very cold. Stuart Hutchinson, who’s been back since 2 pm, tells Krakauer to come outside and bang pots and pans to make enough noise for the rest of the group to find its way back; however, Krakauer is too deliriously tired to respond. Hutchinson goes outside to bang the pots and pans; however, he’s smart enough not to wander beyond the camp.

While Hutchinson beats pots and pans, Beidleman tries to remain vigilant. Around midnight, the storm clears up, and Klev Schoening, one of the clients, convinces Beidleman that he knows where the tents are. Beidleman assembles those who can walk (not including Namba or Weathers), and staggers off toward Camp Four, knowing that if he were to wait for everyone to walk with him, they’d all freeze. Beidleman leads the clients back to Camp Four, where he finds Anatoli Boukreev.

That afternoon, Anatoli Boukreev had behaved extremely unusually for a professional guide; he climbed far ahead of his clients instead of helping them. He was back at Camp Four by 2 pm, drinking tea. One client claims that Boukreev “cut and ran” instead of staying to help. Boukreev told Scott Fischer that he’d be going down with Martin Adams, but in fact didn’t descend the summit with anyone. Boukreev later claims that he thought he’d be more useful if he went back to Camp Four and rested, rather than waiting out in the snow. However, Boukreev’s susceptibility to the cold was greatly increased by his decision not to use supplemental oxygen.

On the evening of May 10, Anatoli Boukreev sets out by himself to try to find the clients that Beidleman had left (including Yasuko Namba and Beck Weathers). Boukreev tries to organize a team, but finds that the other clients are extremely disoriented. Bravely, Boukreev decides to go out into the storm alone. However, he is unable to find anyone. He returns to camp, gets better information from Beidleman about the location of the climbers, and then goes out into the storm again. This time, he finds some of the lost clients, including Weathers and Sandy Pittman. Boukreev can only bring the clients back one-by-one; while Boukreev is bringing one client back, heavy winds push Beck into the darkness, away from the other clients, and Boukreev is unable to find him again.

Boukreev continues to evacuate clients one-by-one. He succeeds in bringing Sandy Pittman back to Camp Four, but not Yasuko Namba. When Boukreev realizes that Namba is still out there, he cries for nearly an hour.