|
High
Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed
tells dual narratives set in the 2004 Everest mountaineering
season. Journalist and mountaineer Michael Kodas chronicles
both his own group summit attempt and the death of 69-year-old
mountaineer Nils Antazana on a separate expedition. Disillusioned
by the disintegration of his own group into a jumble of accusations,
lies, and theft, Kodas investigated the death of Antazana,
uncovering a web of deceptions perpetrated by an under-skilled,
sociopathic guide which are unsettlingly representative of
the state of Everest in the age of commercial exploration.
The book
stems from Kodas's Hartford Courant newspaper assignment to
report on what was supposed to be an exhilarating, extreme
journey by a group of like-minded adventurers. The author
describes assaults, prostitution, rampant theft of expensive
climbing supplies, sabotage, and con men in the lawless frontier
base camp.
On the
mountain, the situation is even more dire. Performance enhancing
drugs have made their way to the mountain, providing a means
for climbers to push their bodies even further in Everest's
notorious Death Zone. Climbers are abandoned by inexperienced
guides who overstate their experience to get a rich customer
to foot the bill for an expedition. Summiters have essential,
life-sustaining equipment stolen not only at base camp but
from mountain tents while they cling to the edge of survival.
Kodas even uncovered evidence of an unscrupulous businessman
gambling with human life by re-selling re-claimed oxygen tanks
as high-quality Russian originals.
In a
second, interwoven narrative, Kodas describes the final climb
of Nils Antazana, which he began investigating at the request
of the man's family. The journalist learned that Antazana
fell prey to a con man who abandoned the doctor for dead and
used his money and equipment for a personal summit bid. The
story, which is told piecemeal throughout the text, reinforces
the picture of a lawless frontier that Kodas paints of the
Everest base camp and the man-eat-man world of the slopes.
This is the stronger narrative of the two which comprise High
Crimes, perhaps because the author wrote the story as
an observer instead of a participant.
The author's
point is clear: Everest is a dangerous climate inhospitable
to human life. Kodas argues that historically, climbers have
abandoned their own summit bids to save the lives of others,
even others who are in separate expeditions. In the modern
day, reports of climbers literally stepping around dying or
dead climbers are rampant. The book sets the stage for a personal
ethical dilemma: Should a climber be blamed for not wanting
to abandon his or her own summit attempt to help an underprepared
climber who planned to leech off the system?
Kodas
has written a book lambasting inexperienced climbers descending
upon a remote mountain outpost, yet he is an intermediate
climber at best. He briefly addresses this discrepancy in
an opening chapter, yet he believes himself immune from the
criticism about the commercialization of Everest, to which
he certainly contributed. When describing his own group's
strife, the author is unable to quiet his personal outrage
at meeting people who were not as honest and forthright as
he expected. He airs his laundry list of gripes about his
teammates, angry that "their side" got published before his
in online weblogs. It is hard for the reader to summon much
outrage over poor communication skills and meals that weren't
shared properly when people are being led to their deaths
elsewhere on the mountain. Kodas has legitimate complaints,
especially when he is blackmailed and victimized by theft
on the mountain, but his inability to separate normal group
dynamics from true crimes muddles his personal account of
the climb.
Natural
danger and extremes are part of the allure of Everest (which
is the highest peak in the world, but by no means the most
technically challenging), but Kodas describes an entirely
new world of man-made menace and crime. Kodas shows that Everest
is turning into a world where every man must look out for
himself above all else to avoid being duped by those looking
either to make a quick buck or to make it to summit no matter
the cost.
(June,
2008)
|
