The expedition to climb Mt. Everest is amongst man's most quixotic ambitions,
             brimming with a sense of conquest over the most daunting of that which the earth has to offer us. To the individuals who scaled the mountain in two separate commercial groups in May of 1996, this was a test of will, endurance, courage and survival with a cost far higher than any of its participants had anticipated. On one day in 1996, eight climbers would be lost to a torrential and catastrophic storm which group leaders had failed to anticipate, leading to what remains the deadliest season over in Everest history. The events of that day in May, particularly, have spawned a cottage industry of literary perspectives on the subject, the vast majority of them authored by the individuals who engaged and survived the experience. Without question, this would be an altering experience for those who endured it and for the mountain itself, which would rightfully thereafter be due a tremendous resurgence in respect. And certainly, this is the perspective which highlights John Krakauer's literary accomplishment with Into Thin Air which dutifully captures the tension between natural majesty and human arrogance. By a matter of some irony, Gammelgaard's approach seems almost to embrace the arrogance that, to some extent she seems to believe, one must have if one is to crest the greatest peak in the world. Ultimately, in the wake of the events which precipitated this school of literature, Krakauer's work is the infinitely more realistic and valuable of the two. Key differences are evident in Krakauer's elevated status as both an author and mountaineer, with Gammelgaard, by contrast, directing her focus toward a sense of emotional and personal triumph in survival.
             The distinction in these approaches is evident quite immediately. Krakauer orients the reader toward this more humbled message by drawing from the experience of earlier clim...