A Disaster Conclusion

The weather on May tenth, 1996, took the lives of 8 men and women, one of the deadliest days in Everest history.  But one of the most significant things about that deadly day, is the fact that more guides died than clients. It is true that guides usually have more experience and training than clients, but people also make mistakes. Some of the mistakes made by the guides were not establishing an exact turnaround time, poor communication with Sherpas and one another, and other simple mistakes that led to the deaths of two of the best guides on Everest, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. People try to find one person to blame when something this tragic happens, although there are multiple factors, variables, people, etc. Sandy Pittman was the victim of most of the blame.

Sandy Pittman was well known before the 1996 Everest disaster, and was the unfortunate victim of an onslaught of insults, hate, etc. Sandy was not the direct cause of Scott Fischer’s death, but it was Scott’s decision to give Pittman special treatment that played part in his passing. Part of the reason Sandy received such awful responses to her part in the 1996 disaster was the fact that she was already a fairly public figure. Sandy loved publicity, at least, until she made it down Everest alive. She was falsely accused of practically murdering the eight people who died on May 10, 1996. While Sandy Pittman had others pinning the blame on her, Jon Krakauer was Pinning the blame of Doug Hansen’s death on himself.

Jon Krakauer was not the cause of Doug Hansen’s death, but he still blamed himself for it. When Jon was trying to make it back to base camp he thought he saw Doug walking back to base camp. After chatting for a bit, Hansen continued on to descend the ice fall. Then he slipped and fell about 70 feet before is ice pick miraculously caught hold in the rock, saving his life. The next morning when Jon woke up, he was told Doug never made it to his tent. Krakauer kept telling everyone that he saw Doug descend to the tents for two months after Everest. Unfortunately, he was proved incorrect. In fact, a couple of months after Into Thin Air was released, Jon received information that it was Martin Adams that he saw fall down the Khumbu Ice Fall.