Thursday, February 15, 2007
Alex's First Prompt :-)
I was wondering, since four people on Jon Krakauer's expedition died, why would someone want to pay thousands of dollars to go up Everest knowing that they have a pretty good chance of dying? Also, why do you think some people (like Jon Krakauer) had a dream of going up Everest since they were young?
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I think why the author decided to climb Mt. Everest because he wanted to “conquer the mountain.” That was his dream. All of the books have been about dreams so far. Jon Krakauer had heard of those heroes who could climb a mountain, something millions of times taller than themselves, with much risk to their own lives. Many people have been trying to reach their dream at the top of the mountain. Some people like tangible dreams, to be able to literally get to your goal. People achieve their goals by using whatever they can, such as expensive equippent because it was keeps them going. To keep trying to achieve their dream.
First of all, there is not an extreme chance of dieing while climbing Mount Everest. Only 5% percent of people who climb Everest have died. Jon dreamed of doing this because Everest is the tallest thing on earth. The reason for many people and Jon to climb Everest is that they want to say, "I have been at the tallest point in the world!" Now that would be extraordinary, but it is not like you can just go say, "I am going to climb Mount Everest. Ice climbing involves tons of practice. You will die if you do not know a single thing about climbing! They pay money because they think it is worth it, maybe students reading this book don't think its worth tens of thousands of dollars, but the climbers do!, if it means working double shifts every day of the week, they will do it! This brings of up another question people could think about but let us not get into that. So I close by saying that the people, who climb Everest, climb Everest because they want to!
Quite possibly, so many of the people who went up Everest went up knowing that if they made it down they would be able to have that satisfaction of knowing they did something not a lot of people have done. Think about it. Wouldn’t you be proud and happy you did something not many people would or could do? Why would the people who wanted to go forever and ever turn down a chance to do it if it stared at them in the face? So many of the people who went up knew that they were in for something that they were going to do what they love, even if it killed them.
Many people would like to pay thousands of dollars to reach the summit of the world for many reasons. Sometimes, as in Jon Krakauer's case, they do it for passion and for pleasure. Many people have climbed this mountain and have lived to tell the tale of it. Jon had dreams of climbing this mountain when he was younger because this was his dream and he was born a mountain climber. He had heard of the times when other climbers climbed the mountain and he then made it a priority so he would climb the mountain for himself and his passion. This passion was the thing that drove Jon into climbing many mountains including Mt. Everest. I close by saying that many people who were going to climb Mt. Everest knew what they were getting themselves into.
The feeling. Imagine you have been to the highest point on earth. You are above all humanity. This feeling would be of utter accomplishment and triumph I’d imagine. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want that. Many of the climbers do it for publicity and to stroke their own egos, but others do it more for a feeling of self. Subconsciously I’m sure they all want the bragging rights, but that is only human. I would love to say ‘I did it. I stood above all the earth’s cities. I proudly walked at 29,029 feet above the oceans’.
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