Mallory & Irvine

While not directly related to Mallory and Irvine, I’ll keep an update here on the controversy between myself and Jon Krakauer relating to the 1996 Everest disaster. More information is available at: https://github.com/mtracy-quantum/Everest/tree/main/ITA. In terms of all Krakauer’s name-calling, he has a long history of attacking anyone who criticizes him. https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/did-greg-mortenson-get-shaft/ ““I asked [Krakauer] for an interview, and he came back with a long personal and professional attack on me,” Jordan told the audience of more than 200”

First, the controversy. I claim the numerous errors and omissions in Into Thin Air establishes a clear pattern that Krakauer was shaping a narrative rather than accurately reporting what happened. In response, Krakauer claims that although he did indeed make numerous mistakes, these were all inadvertent and not part of pushing any narrative.

For a list of all errors: https://malloryandirvine.com/2025/03/01/consolidated-list-of-errors-and-journalistic-lapses-in-into-thin-air/

Krakauer has admitted the following mistakes:

Mistakenly had Sand Pittman being “grabbed by the harness” while above the Hillary Step when a photo showed that it did not occur in that location. Krakauer blames Neal Beidleman for incorrectly telling him the location despite a published interview with Neal Beidleman appearing in The Climb clearly showing that those events occurred below South Summit.

Tracy is right: I should have been able to figure out from Beidleman’s photo that he was mistaken when he told me the events described in the excerpt above occurred above the Hillary Step instead of below the Hillary Step, where they actually occurred. I will correct this error in all future editions of Into Thin Air.

But my mistake, which was inadvertent and made in good faith, does not justify the disingenuous claim Tracy makes several minutes later in his video, when he falsely claims that my failure to correct Beidleman’s error was deliberate. Tracy ends this video by claiming “any reasonable person would know” that what Beidleman told me was incorrect, but I tried to pass it off as the truth in order to invent a nefarious narrative, which he alleges was something I did repeatedly throughout my book.

In his response, Krakauer ignored that he interviewed two other people (Tim Madsen and Charlotte Fox) that were with Beidleman at that point and should have been asked to confirm Beidleman’s statements. In addition, the interview with Beidleman published in The Climb would also make it obvious that the incidents did not occur above the Hillary Step.

Fabricating that the Montenegrins had run out of rope. From Krakauer:

In Chapter Thirteen I wrote, “The Montenegrins, who’d gotten even higher [than Göran Kropp, the Swedish Soloist who ascended to within 350 feet of the top on May 3], had installed some fixed line [on May 9], but in their inexperience they’d used all they had in the first 1,400 feet above the South Col, wasting it on relatively gentle slopes where it wasn’t really needed.” I should not have written this. It was presumptuous of me to speculate they’d “wasted” all of their fixed line by installing it well below the Southeast Ridge and Hillary Step. It’s likely they were still carrying enough rope to fix the Hillary Step when they turned around below it because of high wind. Furthermore, I was very grateful for the rope they’d fixed as I descended from the Balcony to the South Col into the rapidly intensifying storm on May 10, when I was exhausted and out of bottled oxygen.

Ignoring the disparity between the oxygen provided to Mountain Madness with that provided to Adventure Consultants:

At the beginning of this chapter I included an excerpt from the video Michael Tracy posted on April 7, 2024, in which he says,

Previously I was critical of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air because it failed to mention that the Mountain Madness clients received four oxygen bottles while the Adventure Consultants’ received only three for their summit bids.

This criticism is valid. In future editions of my book I will update what I wrote about the number of oxygen cannisters received by each team — although when I do, I will correct Tracy’s incorrect assertion that Scott Fischer’s clients each received four oxygen bottles, and that Rob Hall’s clients each received three bottles. At least one of Fischer’s clients, and possibly others, received more than four oxygen cannisters. And it’s possible at least one or two of Hall’s clients received more than three cannisters.

As a note, I described the initial plan that each climber on Mountain Madness was to receive a fourth bottle, but clearly things did not go according to plan as I detail in the video about oxygen bottle theft (see below).

Reporting the incorrect time at the base of the Hillary Step:

I’m grateful to Tracy for pointing out this error. Clearly, I could not have ascended the from the base of the Hillary Step to the summit in twelve minutes. But he is mistaken when he suggests that I ever claimed to have done so in my book or anywhere else to advance a narrative. The confusion was the result of an inadvertent typo. When I typed “1:00” in the sentence above as I was writing the manuscript for my book, I had meant to type “12:00,” which was the correct time, but I accidentally dropped the “2.” This typo resulted in the time being erroneously published as “1:00.” I have no excuse for not catching this embarrassing blunder until Tracy discovered it.

However, his explanation that he meant to type “12” but accidentally only typed “1” does not make any sense. He had just written, “grabbed another coil from Ang Dorje, and with Boukreev and Harris we got under way at noon to fix lines up the summit ridge.” (pp. 228-229) and “Half an hour above the South Summit I arrived at the foot of the Hillary Step” (p. 230). So, why would he be alarmed if his watch showed it was past 12? What other time could it possibly have been? As a note, Krakauer has now changed the 30 minutes for the traverse to 20 minutes as 30 minutes no longer works for the new version.

And on Krakauer running out of oxygen, Krakauer makes conflicting statements in two different posts. In “Chapter 8”

Tracy is prevaricating when he suggests my book attempts to cover up the fact that the reason I ran out of bottled oxygen is because I “screwed up,” and was therefore attempting to blame Harris for my oxygen shortage.

And in Chapter 5:

Plainly, my decision to keep heading for the summit before picking up my third oxygen bottle was reckless, irresponsible, and incredibly stupid. I needlessly endangered not only myself, but other people on the mountain, too. Tracy is right about this.

On this issue, see the “Third on the Descent” issue which goes into this at more length: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHDZeKM13LE

The oxygen bottle theft. Covered at length in Krakauer’s “Chapter 4”, I had pointed out in my videos that there was overwhelming evidence that oxygen bottle theft had occurred. It seemed bizarre to me that an investigative journalist covering the event would not make a single reference to it in his book.

It’s likely that some oxygen bottles cached on the South Summit by Sherpas on Rob Hall’s team were used instead by climbers from Scott Fischer’s team and/or Makalu Gau’s team. Indeed, in his January 7 video, Tracy points out that during a presentation I gave at Colorado College in 2016, at one point I glibly stated that during my descent in 1996, “I ran out of oxygen. Someone stole the third of my three oxygen bottles.”

I regret saying this. I have no evidence that anyone stole an oxygen cannister intended for me. Yes, the purportedly full cannister Michael Groom handed to me at the South Summit on May 10 was only half full. But I lack sufficient information to state with certainty that the cannister was depleted because someone from another team intentionally exchanged their half-empty cannister for one of Hall’s full cannisters earlier in the day.

I’m certain that Groom and Yasuko Namba each received their third bottles from Hall’s stash before they climbed from the South Summit to the summit. Additionally, after Groom, Namba, Andy Harris, and I returned to the South Summit on our descent, according to Groom’s book, each of us received a bottle from the eight purportedly full bottles in Hall’s stash. Which suggests that Groom and Namba each received four bottles. It seems highly likely, however, that most of the eight bottles in Hall’s stash — and possibly all of them — were not actually full, although it’s impossible to know why with any certainty.

The substantial possibility that oxygen bottle theft occurred dramatically changes any analysis of what took place. It is especially important to Andy Harris’ story, as he was accurately alerting people to a real problem. Instead, in his book, Krakauer speculated that Harris was simply hypoxic. “Two full bottles were waiting for them at the South Summit; if Hall had known this he could have retrieved the gas fairly quickly and then climbed back up to give Hansen a fresh tank. But Andy Harris, still at the oxygen cache, in the throes of his hypoxic dementia, overheard these radio calls and broke in to tell Hall—incorrectly, just as he’d told Mike Groom and me—that all the bottles at the South Summit were empty.” (p. 285).

Krakauer had no evidence that the bottles were full — and yet he had no problem reporting as fact that the bottles were full. “When we got there, an examination of the oxygen cache immediately revealed that there were at least six full bottles.” (p. 236). No such “examination” was performed. No one determined that the bottles were full. Krakauer even states in his book that the “full” bottle he received was only half full. “Three hours earlier when I’d attached my regulator to my third and last oxygen canister, I’d noticed that the gauge indicated that the bottle was only half full.” (p. 243).

Conclusion

These are the major errors in Into Thin Air that Krakauer has admitted to so far. Numerous smaller errors exit, for instance, getting Michael Groom’s age wrong, which demonstrate that no fact checking was performed. There are also additional mistakes that I have pointed out since Krakauer wrote his 8 “chapters.” I will continue to highlight the numerous errors made in his book and also in his “Chapters” responding to my videos. Each time he makes a change, it has a ripple-effect that shows even more problems with his book.

Discussion about the errors in Into Thin Air