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Bolting Mt Everest 9-May-2005 At 5:54:18 PM Onsight

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The following quote comes from a '03 review in the Age of Jon Krakauer's latest book...
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/16/1060936089761.html

...Krakauer still climbs, often twice a week with a friend, scaling the rock walls in Boulder's backyard. He does not consider reaching the summit of Everest a major mountaineering achievement.

"I'm kind of freaked out by it all now," he said. "If I had to write a climbing resume now, I wouldn't even put Everest on it."

Mountaineering is like a religious faith in one way, he said, because it defies reason. And climbing Everest is the ultimate irrational act.

"The plain truth is that I knew better but went to Everest anyway," Krakauer wrote at the start of Into Thin Air in 1996. "And in doing so I was party to the death of good people, which is something that is apt to remain on my conscience for a very long time."

He wrote the Everest book as a cautionary tale, blaming commercial guides for rushing overeager clients up a mountain that requires expertise and patience - and can't always be bought. It has had the opposite effect, of drawing more people to the mountain, Krakauer said, and now he is disgusted with the climbing world's continued focus on Everest. "The owner of an Everest guiding service recently thanked me for bringing him more clients."