Jon Krakauer: In Defense of Into Thin Air
Accusations of falsehood leveled against Jon Krakauer's Everest account, recorded in his best-selling book Into Thin Air, have been met with eight new articles and videos.
When tracing my reading journey to its origins, I believe the starting point was discovering Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air. This was what I attribute turning me into a reader, not being able to put the book down, instantly becoming one of my all-time favorite accounts. When launching my podcast, I made sure that I began from the start, which is why my first episode was about Into Thin Air. I read Krakauer's other books, and while they all were excellent reads, Into Thin Air will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Following Krakauer on Instagram, I recently found a series of posts that he made regarding his book. He does not strike me as the type of guy who is constantly plugging his books. What I love about his Instagram posts are the photos he shares of the stories that he has either participated in (Everest) or researched. When the bus where Chris McCandless died was airlifted out of Alaska, he shared a photo and write-up of that. I don't get the vibe from Jon that he shared that as a reason to talk about his book, more so his deep connections to the subjects he writes about and the circumstances surrounding them.
I was intrigued to find him in a defensive position regarding Into Thin Air, or perhaps going on offense to attack what he believes are lies spread about his account on Everest. Here is what he had to say:
"In August 2024 I learned from comments in my Instagram feed that a YouTuber named Michael Tracy had been aggressively maligning my book, Into Thin Air, on his YouTube channel, which has more than 130,000 subscribers. In April 2024, Tracy posted the first of at least sixteen videos (thus far) claiming to have identified numerous errors in my book about the 1996 Everest disaster, most of which he insists are lies intended to promote a deliberately false narrative. Almost all of Tracy’s allegations are demonstrably untrue. Given the damage Tracy is attempting to inflict on my reputation, and his flagrant misrepresentations of what happened on Everest in 1996, I feel the need to debunk as many of his dishonest claims as possible. I have therefore written a detailed refutation of some of Tracy’s most egregious allegations, which I will present in eight separate chapters, starting today, with a new chapter posted every day or so going forward. The chapters will be available as videos posted on my new YouTube Channel, @JonKrakauerEverest, and also in written form on my Medium page. You can view Chapter One on both platforms by hitting the link in my profile."
Imagine creating a series of videos and having the author take the time to write eight chapters debunking you. Many have come to Jon’s defense on social media, labeling the attacks as those only from an attention-seeking troll. Whatever lit the fire, we now have eight articles and videos from Krakauer.
You might be asking, why even engage with this? If you were Krakauer, could you ignore it? I wondered that myself as did many others fearing this level of response would only feed the trolls. I saw a response directly from Krakauer about choosing to reply to the allegations or just let it be, to which he offered this:
I agree that my decision to refute Tracy's bullshit has given him more attention and more revenue, and that my effort to debunk his videos will not stop him from continuing his dishonest attacks on me and my book. But I believe it's a mistake to capitulate to domineering online bullshit artists like Tracy. Standing up for the truth is important.
For anyone who has read Into Thin Air, you should find this all quite interesting. I have compiled all of the YouTube videos and links to the corresponding Medium articles for each chapter Krakauer put together.
Chapter One: Traffic Jams on Mount Everest in 1996
Chapter Two: Michael Tracy's Overarching Lie
Chapter Three: Yasuko Namba, Beck Weathers, Mike Groom
Chapter Four: The Stunt
Chapter Five: Did I Help Fix the Ropes?
Chapter Six: Analysis of Neal Beidleman's Photo
Chapter Seven: The Himalayan Database
Chapter Eight: Running out of oxygen on the Hillary Step
Further Reading:
Climbing Mt. YouTube - Jon Krakauer is online, defending Into Thin Air. Again. by Laura Miller for Slate
A Postscript to “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, Sep. 15, 2020