So...

After I read that one new book on Mt. Everest, I went nuts and read everything I could get my hands on about Everest, all books I have read before.

So, I have read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev, Climbing High by Lene Gammelgaard, and Left for Dead by Beck Weathers. All of these books were written by the people involved in the May 1996 climbing season disaster.

It was fun to read all of the books one after the other, because they all give a different view of what happened. And still, it is unclear what REALLY happened, especially to Scott Fisher and Rob Hall, leaders of two different climbing expeditions and two of the most experienced climbers of their time. Both of them died up there...the summit day was good for climbing but for some reason they did not adhere to their turn-around time, and late in the day the storm blew in, which was the reason so many people died. Why did they not turn everyone who had not yet summitted around at 1pm, according to the plan? Some folks were still up there at 4pm - way too late even if the weather had NOT turned. We'll never know why they made the decisions they made...

And two things: 1) Anatoli Boukreev was given the shaft by Jon Krakauer (Anatoli was a hero that day)
2) Anyone who goes up there expecting to be rescued if something goes wrong is crazy. Even seasoned mountain climbers are usually in no shape to launch a rescue above 8,000 meters. It is to each his own on Everest. People who DO get rescued are plain lucky.