Mt. Everest Persuasive Essay

Jon Krakauer is looking to fulfill a childhood ambition by finally climbing Mount Everest. After being assigned to write a brief piece about the mountain for Outside magazine, Krakauer manages to convince his bosses to fund a full-fledged expedition to the top. Bold. Krakauer is climbing with Adventure Consultants, a commercial group led by experienced climber Rob Hall. The journalist befriends several members of his group, such as Andy Harris, a guide, and Doug Hansen, a fellow client and postal worker back home.

Many of them are inexperienced and would undoubtedly never make it to the top without a guide. The one unifying characteristic shared by all of the climbers is that they have money—enough to shell out $65,000 a piece for their shot at the top. Krakauer spends long chapters giving his best, most educated guesses about why climbers made certain decisions, and what happened to the people who disappeared. This is an exercise that must result in major frustration, as no one can be entirely sure what took place. Many mistakes later, Krakauer manages to piece together an outline of what happened to whom and when during the climb, but the questions he struggles with in almost every situation are "why" and "how".

79) (Simile). "The wind kicked up huge swirling waves of powder snow that washed down the mountain like breaking surf, plastering my clothing with frost." (pg. 125) (Simile).These smilies really compare, and show the reader the harsh conditions the climbers faced everyday. The main paradox in the book is that experience and preparation ultimately means nothing on Mt. Everest. In particular, no one thought that such a tragedy could occur on an expedition guided by Rob Hall, the most celebrated Everest guide dog of the decade.

In the autobiography The Push, Tommy Caldwell describes his journey as a rock climber and the risks he had to take to get to where he is now. Paul Roberts, in his article Risk, addresses why people take major risks and the addictive factors that are involved, even when they are faced with intense fear. In the Journal of Health Psychology article, Extreme Sports Are Good For Your Health, Eric Brymer and Robert Schweitzer hint on risk and discuss fear as an experience and the relationship that people have with it.

Comparison and Contrast Essay of “Everest” and “The Devil’s Thumb” Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, has had approximately four-thousand people go through freezing temperatures, breathe thin oxygen, and risk a painful death in an attempt to ascend to its uppermost point at 29,029 feet. Erik Weihenmayer was one of the six-hundred sixty people who has successfully done so and was the first blind person to do so. John Krakauer is another one of the six hundred sixty. Krakauer also pioneered a new route for a notorious mountain in Southeast Alaska called The Devil’s Thumb. These men have both written descriptive, intense, and genuine memoirs about their experiences.

Krakauer visioned the climb to be fun, fulfilling, and challenging; however, he soon realized that it was excruciatingly painful. He expressed early in his memoir, ”Secretly, I dreamed of ascending Everest myself one day; for more than a decade it remained a burning ambition” (Krakauer 23). As

Krakauer explains how following the discovery of Everest as the highest mountain in the world, the journey to the top would take the lives of 24 men, the efforts of 15 expeditions and the passage of 101 years before someone would finally reach the summit. This demonstrates how all though the expedition to the top was not easy, and would require the lives of many men, people would not stop trying because that is human nature. Not all people climb Mt. Everest in their lifetime, but most people, if not all, work hard to achieve something or be successful. Whether that success may be in their professional life, their personal life, or anything else, Mt. Everest can symbolize all of it. It symbolizes a journey to success and relates to the theme of humans natural drive and passion to pursue what they want.

In the essay “Why the Reckless Survive” by Melvin Konner, the author describes why individuals perform reckless activities. Konner also explains that people do no think clearly about the risks that they are taking, and provides assumptions about why we do what we do. In the essay “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World” by Michael Dirda, the author states that we should re-inspire our children with noble ideals, and persuade them to build a new world. In the essay by Melvin Konner the author provides many sources such as psychologists, physicians, sociologists and many more to explain his assumptions about why people participate in reckless behavior.

Rough Draft Cross country is probably the simplest sport anyone will ever play. All they need is a pair of sneakers and a water bottle. The team runs together, but also as individuals. Cross country is great because even though it is hard, it will help make runners stronger and better at other sports they play.

When Krakauer reached the summit, he noticed the clouds changing; a storm was coming, and he needed to descend as fast as he could (pg. 242). As many calamities there were while ascending Everest, descending proved to be the primary

Sometimes one’s principles are amazingly powerful enough for one to sacrifice their own life. In the tragedy, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the protagonist, John Proctor is accused of being a witch and has the option to confess to save his life. He decides to stick to his principles and is hanged for refusing to tell a lie. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” King speaks in support of the striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. He talks about several beliefs and his aim in life.

While learning of the conditions of the climbers, the reader is given a better picture of what the reality was of climbing Everest. As the climbers scale the mountain, it demands more and more physical endurance. The climbers feel themselves deteriorating, even breathing is difficult. “[At Camp Three] Brain cells were dying. Our blood was growing dangerously thick and sludgelike.

Krakauer’s first person accountancy of the disaster puts forth the argument that trust and loyalty are the key elements and perseverance, and the key to survival. Through his own personal experiences, Krakauer highlights the intended purpose of the novel and sets numerous tones. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled countless people, including himself, to ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer 's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular

Over the following decades, Mount Everest has been seen as an opportunity for commercialization. You can now pay thousands of dollars for an experienced climber to guide you up the mountain, along with Sherpas to help you carry your things. This has become such a norm that people have lost sight of the real reason they climb the mountain.

Running, that word gives many people different emotions that range all the way from disgust to excitement. Most people will say that they would never willingly run, at least not without some motivation and other people might even say that they enjoy it. This is why the sport of cross country is so strange to people, in fact it is strange to me as well that people would willingly run, despite the fact that I actually run cross country. The main reason that people don 't think running is fun is because it is so physically challenging. Running requires you to always be on your game, the slightest injury or distraction can prevent you from doing your best.