Into Thin Air

For some reason I don't understand, I've always felt a pull to Everest, thinking, “Maybe someday I'll try to climb it.” I have no idea why. I don't like camping. I don't like the cold. I don't enjoy physical exertion in any form. I haven't tried it, but I expect that I wouldn't enjoy defecating on a snowbank on a hill in -36 Celsius and winds reaching 160 kph. Amazingly, this book did nothing to dampen that call.

Some fun facts from the book:
- There are dozens of ways to die on Everest: multiple altitude sicknesses, cold, falling into a crevasse, avalanches, falling serracs, suffocation.
- It takes more than two months to climb.
- The descent is often more dangerous than the assent.
- There are hundreds of bodies on Everest, many along the trail you travel.
- The mountain is littered with garbage and feces.
- The air is so thin at the top, that without acclimatizing, you would be unconscious within 3 - 4 minutes, dead a few minutes later.
- The summit is 29,035 feet above sea level.