Book Review: Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air is "a personal account of the Mt. Everest disaster" by Jon Krakauer (author of Into The Wild.) When I first saw the title and subtitle, I figured the climbers get blown off the mountain by a storm. Actually, it's about the challenges of climbing at high altitudes where the air is considerably thinner. About two-thirds of the book details the climb up Everest before the disaster. Even in best of conditions, it sounded like a pretty harrowing ordeal.

Standing roughly 29,000 feet, Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. Climbing it requires extraordinary skill, strength, and physiology. Many people have died climbing it. The higher you go up a mountain, the more climbers are prone to various forms of altitude sickness. Even if you do not get altitude sickness, with less oxygen to your brain, a person's mental and phsyical capacity is reduced accordingly, making one susceptable to poor judgment, cold, and injuries.

Acclimatization is an important process while climbing at high altitudes. While ascenting, climbers should rest periodically to get used to the thinning air. In the case of Everest, there are four camps above the Base Camp (17,600 ft). The acclimatization process on Everest consists of multiple climbs to each of those camps and back, each time ascending to the higher camp. Even then, staying an extended period of time above a certain height without oxygen will kill your brain cells. When making the actual summit attempt, perhaps couple of nights are spent at the lower camps while only one night is spent at the higher camps. On summit day, a climber will typically leave Camp Four just past midnight, with hopes of making it to summit by 1 or 2 pm at latest, giving them enough time for the decent back to camp before dark. That's a very long day of climbing - 15 hours or more - under the most difficult of conditions. Perhaps even after some sleepless nights in the camps below.

Imagine the challenges of climbing Everest, and then add to that a hurricane like blizzard. Some of the climbers get stuck in it on their descent from the summit. Some make it, some don't. From the very beginning, Krakauer does a great job of describing the various climbers who get involved in the disaster. It was interesting to read about the individuals' background, differences, and their performance on the mountain. In the end, it was not necessarily the strongest who survive. Sometimes luck or fate play a roll. Most times though, it's human factor. A simple mistake can lead to huge disasters, or a heroic deed saves lives.

Perhaps the one character who surprised me the most is of one who was left for dead - twice! This person was presumed dead and left overnight in a storm with no shelter in sub-freezing temperatures. Somehow the next day he regained enough strength and lucidity to find his way back to Camp Four. After other climbers helped him get comfortable, they yet again figured he would die and left him unattended during another stormy night where he suffered some more. Despite serious injuries from frostbite, he survived.

Climbing Everest crossed my mind only once several years ago when a friend told me about his desire to climb to the Everest Base Camp. By the sound of it, the Base Camp is fairly attainable (as long as you can cough up the expensive fees) so I thought... hmm. Few seconds later though, I figured I'd probably die and hadn't given it a second thought since. However, next time I'm in the mountains snowboarding and feeling cold, or struggling up some difficult hike, I hope I will remember the adversity faced by the climbers described in the book and gain strength from it.

Another Dancing Nomad - 2008

Back in 2006 I made a post about Another Dancing Nomad. He is back again, although there are a lot more people dancing with him this time (they're kind of in the way sometime):

Boycott Flying

I love to travel - but I hate flying. Once upon a time, being at an airport or on a plane used to excite me. Just the thought of going somewhere was enough to make any inconveniences worth it. Not anymore. Flying has become a serious hassle over the years. Post 9-11, the ridiculous amount of security put in place at most airports requires you to be at the aiport well before your flight if you do not want to stress over missing your flight. There are times when you get lucky and you manage to get to the gate within 30 minutes of entering the airport. It's not always the case, particularly on weekends or evenings. Standing in those mile long security lines, I've seen way too many people fret over their flight that has already begun boarding.

Then there's the whole "no liquid" thing. Talk about inconvenience. I don't want to have to go out and buy a travel bottle for every freakin' liquid I want to take on board. Even then, with the 10 bottle restriction, I am just barely going to be able to get my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash, deodorant, body lotion, face lotion, sun block, foundation, and mascara in my carry-on. Oh, and since I can't bring a water bottle in, I pretty much have to suck it up and buy one in the terminal. Or wait for the flight attendant to bring you some. Oh wait. Some airlines are now going to start charging you for drinks on board.

In an effort to recoup fuel costs, airlines have started penny pinching. They've already started charging for second checked bags. They've also gotten rid of snacks on board longer domestic flights (but you can buy them for $5). Now there's talks of charging for the first checked bag and for drinks on board. Am I the only one who thinks the cabin air is dehydrating and that passengers should be allowed to at least get water on board? Besides, how much are they really going to save by these methods? Why don't they just bump up the ticket cost another $50 or whatever for these expected costs? I don't think a $50 difference is going to be a deciding factor in whether to buy a ticket or not. However, if you start tacking on additional costs for this and that, you're going to get a lot of peeved customers. I'm sure the airline customer service reps already have their handful with passengers complaining of delayed flights. Why add more reasons for customers to be pissed?

Let's talk about that first checked luggage. What's going to happen if you start charging passengers to check their bags? Bingo - they carry on. So what does that do? Makes a delayed flight even more delayed because passengers are spending more time trying to cram stuff in the overhead bins or flight attendants have to check bags when the overhead bins become full. I don't know much about flight dynamics, but should I also be worried about the weight distribution on the plane from a disproportionate # of bags in the cabin to the checked luggage compartment?

The final blow to us passengers after all the above is increased air fare. A friend of mine going to Japan had to pay $1500 to go - $800 for the ticket, and 700 !@#$% dollars in fuel surcharge. Yeah, ok - we have to pay for fuel. Still, given all this crap, there are more people flying today than ever before. Have you ever seen what the air traffic over US looks like on any given day? It looks something like this:

The planes are also fuller than ever. Remember those days when you used to get a full row of seats to yourself? I can't even remember the last time I had even a single empty seat near me. These days, I'm so unlucky to be surrounded by snoring jerks or some tall guy behind me complaining about me putting my seat back. (I just don't see why I have to be uncomfortable so the person behind me can be comfortable. Sitting on long flights kills my back. Stop your fucking whining and get a business class if you're too damn tall to fit in the seat. Otherwise, take it up with the airline - not me.)

Today I saw an interesting presentation on how the US airline industry earned an impressive NEGATIVE 14 billion in revenues over the last however many years. In addition to managing costs, some of the greatest challenges they face today is managing the air traffic. If the # of flights continue to increase as expected, air traffic control as it is today would not be able to handle the volume. So now I wonder, why don't the airlines charge more for the tickets than they have already? It's a simple supply & demand economics. Increase prices to reduce demand to supply. The people who really need to fly will pay the premium, while the people who really don't need to fly will think twice. I for one have already started to think twice and am going to boycott flying after I make my trip to Boston on Labor Day weekend (I bought my flight a while back.)

I'm sure there's some logic to keeping airline ticket prices (somewhat) low. Still, I think raising its prices more might do the industry some good. First, you get less people flying so you can cut the routes that really aren't profitable and also avert the future hazard of too many flights in air. What's even better would be the reduction of people at popular tourist destinations. Travel has gotten too easy so tourism picked up. I'm kind of sick of going places where there are tourists everywhere. Anyways, with increased ticket revenues, your bottom line might actually be in the black so you can start restoring some basic services to make customers happy, making them more inclined to fly again despite the higher ticket prices. Or, with the increased revenues, you might invest it on a new fleet of planes that are more fuel-efficient and more comfortable for those annoying big & tall people. Possibilities are endless.

Anyhow, to end this on a positive note for the airlines, I will commend their safety record. There were no air traffic related fatalities in the US in 2007. Or some similar statistic like that. Bottom line is that flying in the US has been pretty safe. Then again... nothing lasts forever. (Woops... so much for the optimism.)

Road Trip: Utah and Arizona

On June 5th, I flew out to Vegas to begin a 10 day, 1800 mile road trip around Utah and Arizona. The highlights were the national parks, namely Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Grand Canyon. My friend who came with me did an excellent play by play report with pics on our trip so I will just cheat and refer you to his site for details.

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For those of you into hiking, there are many great opportunities to hike in these national parks. They are best avoided in wet season though (such as when it's snowing) as often times you would be walking or scrambling over slick rocks. There are signs all over many of these parks warning you of the dangers of falling. In the summer, it is also best to avoid hiking mid-day. There are also signs all over the place warning you of the dangers of heat exhaustion. To make matters worse, the lighting on the rock formations suck when the sun is high above. For best lighting for photography, you want the sun early morning or later in the day just before sunset. Unless you are going to be in the canyons - then you want the light above. Unfortunately, I didn't plan for photography very well so don't expect too much out of my pictures

If you are into biking, Moab, Utah is apparently the biking capitol of the world (or US?). At the very least many biking opportunities were advertised around there. Also, while on our trip we saw several participants of the Race Across America. This is a crazy event where mostly solo cyclists race coast to coast from California to Maryland - in like 10 days. When I saw the first cyclist while driving across Monument Valley, I was wondering where he's coming from and where he's going. It was hot out, he was going mostly up hill, and the road streches for miles on end with nothing in between. We were getting tired just driving it. Just when I thought nobody could be this crazy, we passed several more crazies in Utah. A couple days later in Arizona, we saw few more crazies cycling up this pretty steep and windy scenic road that connects Sedona and Flagstaff (89A). I probably should be impressed, but all I could think is crazy, crazy, crazy.

Book Review: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki is a book for those wanting to be rich. It was given to me by a friend when I told him of all of my dreams - none of which involved actually working. Rather, working would just get in the way. How can I take a two months pilgrimage in Japan, or backpack around South America for six months if I have to work? Naturally, I'm willing to give anything that might help me achieve these dreams a try. Reading this book was one of them.

The book provides an unconventional view on working and money. The typical attitude of those in my generation and past is "work hard to make money." Robert says, "let your money work for you." By properly investing the money you do have, you can accumulate wealth. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Still, he hammers in the point. Many people are "financially illiterate" and lack general accounting skills. Many more also lack the investing skills. The general problem is people are lazy and do not want to take the time to figure this out. They'd rather just go to work for 40 hours a week, even those who hate their jobs. For some reason they find it easier. Or maybe they think it's the norm. Or they are just very risk averse. At the very least, this book will encourage you to not think like the rest of us who are slaving away at our jobs. If you have dreams of becoming rich, or simply getting out of working for someone, I do recommend reading it. This book alone won't get you there, but it's a start.

Old Rag

Ever since moving here, all of my friends have been telling me about Old Rag. Today I finally got around to hiking the 8.8 miles to the Old Rag Summit (3291 ft). I can see why it is a popular hike around here - all of the rock scrambling makes it pretty fun. It starts off with about an hour and a half or 2 of moderate climb up the mountain. Consider this your warm up. It's best to take this part at a leisurely pace since you'll want your muscles and energy for the rock climbing that follows for the next hour or so to the peak. It's not real rock climbing, and it's not difficult for agile people, but pieces of the rock scrambling is tricky. You do not want to do this hike on a wet day, and shoes with good traction is a must. You will also use your hands a lot. If you have gloves, might want to bring them.

On the way up to the summit on the Ridge Trail, there are many places where you can catch a great view. The 4.5 mile return trip from the summit to the parking lot via the Saddle Trail is a bit uneventful though. At least it's all downhill so it's a good way to cool off, tho not necessarily easy on your legs.

Old Rag is about 2 hours from where I live. You can get hiking maps for Old Rag and other Shenandoah hikes on the NPS website here.