Retiring from Writing Books

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Just you and your glasses Ray Ban Meta, Iconic sttyle, meets Meta AI, available at Walmart and other authorized retailers. Social media consumers, welcome to a bonus edition of the press Box Brian Curtis here along with producers Isaiah Blakeley and John Roman The last time John Krackower was on the press box, we talked about his great book into the wild Today Track hour is back And we're going to talk about his other great book into thin air Thirty years ago this month, while reporting an article for Outside Magazine, John Crackhaower climbed to the summit of Mount Everest He would write the following words Straddling at the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Aepal, I cleared the ice for my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. I understood on some dim detached level that the sweep of the earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. Making it to the top of the world would have been sufficient material for an article or book. and indeed, I'm always a little thrown when I see into thin air in the travel section of a bookstore. But the story would become far bigger and grimmer As Crackhard descended Everest, he encountered a storm that left eight people dead, including the leader of his expedition, Rob Hall You'll hear Crackowers say that Iath Thin Air was written very quickly in just three months, that it was an attempt to make sense of a deadly ordeal, that it was cathartic Another time he used the word exorcism to describe the writing process When I got to reread into thin air last week It just felt powerful Cack hour were short roping me up the mountain And I found myself staying up late, unable to read the book in anything less than one hundred page chunks Now if you've read into thin air You'll be interested in hearing Kraackower describe his time on Everest and everything that went into writing this account. If you've never read into thin air I'm jealous. 's Jhn Crackow All right, John, when you wrote into Thin Air, you said that you couldn't go more than a few hours without thinking about the events you witnessed on Mount Everest. When do you find yourself thinking about those events today random random times. I mean I don't know. it was it was a major event in my life and Yeah, it's it's I can't think of anything else in my life that is has been present for the last thirty years, ever present You know, there's moments when I'm if I'm But yeah, it's not every moment of every day. If I'm engaged in something by climbing or writing the things that, you know, really require my focus, which I love those things because everything else might you know, I got the monkey brain going all the time. and it's such a relief to be able to turn it off. at times. for yeah, no, it's It's there. It just hasn't gone away What led you to Everest in May of ' ninety six Um, well Mark Bryant or I was another editor, I think, who called me initially in ' ninety five to see if I wanted onn the spur of the moment in a few days to go to the Tibetan side of Everest to write about this commercialization of Everest. Th I said, ye. And then I thought about it and said, if I do that, for the next two months, I'll be sitting in base camp, wishing I was climbing Everest So I called him back said I'm not doing it this year, but if you can wait and let me go next year, I'll get in shape so I can climb. If you can find someone, you know, who commomercial expedition who will accept me to climb, that'd be a much better story plus I had this secret dream of climbing Everse myself ever since I was nine years old So, you know, I can't We can't separate the two very easily, whether my journalism or my desire to claim Everus was the driving force Sometimes I think it was the latter. You said that one through line in your work is that you'd like to write about fanatics Do you think of the people who want to climb Everest as fanatics yeah, absolutely not You know, there's a there's a lot of different reasons people climb, but the majority of people I mean, even now that it's so much safer and so much easier than it was thirty years ago, it's still going to take too months out of your life on the mountain You've got to train for it. It's mostly E mostly as I've written is about enduring suffering. That's the main skill you have to have So the people who are driven enough to endure that much suffering are by definition fanatics You were writing this piece for oututside magazine For people who were born into a different and less interesting journalistic universe, what did outside offer you as a writer U A lot It was It was the first magazine where I landed first real magazine where I landed an assignment. I wrote I sent in a query letter as we called them those days All right to outside and it was accepted and they ran the piece and then days or maybe a couple of weeks later. A new editor there named Mark Bryant called me up Give me another assignment. said, Have you ever been stuck in a tent and storm? How'd you like to write about that? So Yeah, they Outside magazine started my journalism career and it was a really good place really good luck to have that magazine, which cared a lot They cared a lot about things beyond the outdoors. I mean, they mostly they cared about good writing So They had this stable of really good writers who were role models, David Kuama, you know, people like that who Um, Barry Lopez, just So it was it was a privilege and an honor to write for them. And I just, you know, they did they their owner of the magazine then, Larry Burke was famously tight wand, so they paid horribly. There is no benefits So for the first ten years of my freelance career, most of You know, I probably wrote at least sixty articles for outside In you know, I had no insurance, I was You know, making ten or fifteen thousand dollars a year, max. It was hard, but it was a great It was to have editors like Mark Bryant and Laura Honnold U Mike McCe. It was it was You know, I learned a lot. That's how I learned I'm sel taught. I learned to write by taking assignments. and it wasn't just good magazines like outside, my first Five years or more, I wrote for you know, these commercial like for Raytheon company, their commercial corporate magazine. I wrote for Nissan Tucks Stuff like that, where thankfully it was pre internet. so none of that stuff can be dug out found and see how terrible it was. But yeah, and then you know I parlayed my skills, which were limited But you know this as when you entered freelancing, So you know, I'd been a carpenter. so I wrote query letters to architectural digest and they went for it. I wrote for them about You it didn't have much to do with building track houses as I'd been doing, but I had been a commercial fisherman in Alaska. so I turned that into a story for Smithsonian magazine. I had buddies climbing buddies who used to do this fire walking thing where you build the bonfire. raake out the hot coals and walk on the coals And I turned that into an assignment for Rolling Stone. So yeah, I mean, I I was really committed. I mean, I I found something I thought I could maybe be good at And I was determined to make it work. So I was, you know, I was working twenty four seven as you have to do when you're self employed as a writer. And I learned a lot and I made it work. I got luck. I had a lot of lucky breaks, deffinitely Luck, you can't overlook importance of serendivity in my career or most careers. So When you before you set off for DePaul, what did you think your ever story was going to be about you know, I thought it seemed like a really bad idea for Everest, which had up until that point, up until a few years earlier been the domain of you know the world's greatest climbers, to even be invited on an expedition, you had to be really fantastic. now Anyone with the money m can try to climb Everest. And that's, you know, I had never been to altitude when I went to Everest. I' never been higher than seventeen thousand feet during a failed attempt to climb Denali So I didn't have a good sense of what altitude was like, but I knew that it was dangerous. I knew that some of these you know, noviceices being taken up at idn't have very good basic cloning skes. Yeah, so I thought it was a Eential recipe for disaster. I didn't imagine that I would be part of that sort of defining disaster. I mean if I'd known that, I would never have gone So I mean, there you have it There were two commercial outfits that took people up the mountain that wanted you to come with them What benefit did they see in taking a reporter along with them up the mountain? Well, they were competing with each other Sot Fisher, who was a friend of mine Se I li in Sattle when he was He was a really strong climber and a friend of mine Um had just launched Guide service and he saw Rob Hall, the other company he wanted me And he thought he could emulate that success So he wanted me for publicity. I mean, And, you know, it was expensive it was expensive for them And I certainly didn't have any money to pay for anything. So outside magazine and what today would be considered not the best journalistic practices, traded ad you know, ad ad credit credit for advertisements in the magazine if they would waive fifty five thousand dollars of their sixty five thousand dollars fee I knew none of this until I was at Base camp and Rob Hul told this to me. but so yeah, they each were in it to get the advertising. As Rob said, that stuff is really expensive Now Scott Fisher is going to be competing with me. He's American. He's going to have much more access to the American market. I'm in New Zealand You know, to compete with him, I need that American advertising. That's I mean Rob was very plain. He didn't pick me because he thought I was a great climer. He said, yeah I don want that advertising U Yeah Clients who are paying sixty five thousand dollars to go up the mountain, how do they react to your presence as a journalist Well, I didn't really think about it much at first But u I realized that, you know no one told them a journalist would become climbing with them. and you know, I wouldn't like it. And so Um The most telling thing was after the expedition, after the disaster Uh, One of the TV stations Forest Sawyer ABC, I think, did a a really good like almost a documentary about it. and they interviewed everybody and they interviewed Vck Weathers at length. And after they were all done, they turned over all the transcripts of all their interviews to me And an interview Beckca doneun that had not aired was incredibly re re revealing Um, he said, u Faar asked him So how it feel to have a journalist along and Beck was really frank. He said, Well, frankly, it was really troubling because You know, you've got, you know, there's this guy who's going to be writing about all your foibles and you don't want to appear like an idiot in front of millions of people. So you might be doing things you wouldn normally do to try to look like a better climber and try to make the summit. And then Sawyer asked him, well, what do you think, how do you think it affected Rob Hall, the expedition leader and he' well Same for him. I'm sure He really felt the need to get clients on the summit, you know? So That really, you know, I that My presence on the mountain had a huge effect on the outcome. I'm convinced, not just among my fellow clients. trying harder than they would have maybe. But I think especially for Rob Hall U Scott Fisher's team, his rival their their his his clients were younger, stronger more experienced, a couple of ringers on that Ours, you know, most of the climbers were quite confident, some were not too strong. U, but Rob could look and see that Scott had a better chance of getting all his clients to the top. And I think he felt pressure to get as many of his clients as he could. and that's why He should have turned around Doug Hanson early in the morning. Actually Doug Hansen had turned himself around. This is pre Dawn. We left for the summit at eleven thirty. just before midnight, sometime in the wee hours, you know, maybe two, three AM. Doug Hanson was cold. He hadn't been doing well. hadt had a clum as. He turned around and headed down. Rob Hall was bringing up the rear of the group. saw him. They had a conversation, No one heard what they said But he convinced Doug, clearly, Doug turned back around and started climbing again. So that was his first time Later, Um He You know, Rob had this rule, everyveryone needs to, if you're not at the summit, the actual summit by one or two PM. He never did tell us the exact time, one of those two times, You will be turned around by me the Sp is and you will obey that. you know, you will go down. That is the cardinal rule Turnaround time, two PM latest. you do not go up Well, he had an opportunity to turn Doug around Um repeatedly, and he never did. A after one, two, Doug didn't reach the summit until four. I mean, and then he collapsed. He was so exhausted and That There were so many mistakes made, so many bad decisions. It was this cascade of bad decisions that each one didn't seem that bad But that one was the one that sort of made the Dena Tower today , and it had tragic consequences So I still am baffled because Rob was an incredibly thoughtful and conserative guy, He was a really good guy. There was consensus, he was the best guide on the mount the best prepared. Um, h, and he made these bad choices that had a terrible outcome I was thinking about this when I was rereading your book last week You talk about the two categories of people on Everest climbers who are doing this because of it's a logical extension of their passion And then the novice tourist who wants to go to the top of the mountain. There's an obvious difference in skill between those two types of people But at the end of the day, how different are their motives? We' getting to the summit of Mount Everest really I don't think they are. I mean, at first Beck Weathers He was his blow hard, Texas Republican, it was always eas. making ridiculing me for being a Democrat, a bed wedding Democrat who like Hillary Clinton and I thought he was just an asshole and a braggart and a By the time we were actually going for the summit and I saw that you know, his feet were hamburger from these boots. He just kept he was tough. He did really well at altitude. and You know, he had suffered from depression. cllimbing sort of transformed his life, gave him meaning, cured his depression. I don't think he was really very different from me. I mean, so yeah, by the end, I think Everest is the highest mountain in the world It is this incredible magnet. for I mean, it's just this iconic thing. It's like even stronger, like now people paying whatever they pay, hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars to go in space for thirty seconds with Jeff Bezos or whoever Everest is kind of like that, only it's much more legit. You really got to takes a lot of that out of you. evenven if you're being guid, even if shirperss do all the work, which they do. They carry all your stuff, they carry the oxygen. You never have to carry more than a day pack But still it is still You are just miserable and you have frostbite and you have altitude sickness and my ribs had torn ligament from coughing and every breath I mean I've never been that miserable for that long in my life. I never hope to be again. So anyone you can can, you know, Endure that Kind of deserves to clim Everest if they can hack it Having said that, anyone who is willing to endure that probably lacks the judgment to be on Everest because they aren't they aren't going to turn around unless you put a gun to their head and make them turn around And that causes a lot of the tragedies on that are still going on today onn the mountain, you were laboring to breathe You found it very hard to think clearly given the lack of oxygen But you also had to take meticulous notes. How did you take notes Uh, Well, I couldn't use a tape recorder. I I learned early on the batteries in the cold just wouldn't work So I had, you know, I had this On Smmeray I had this big dance suit throughroughout I had all these pockets and a different notebook in every pocket. And anytime had what they call a space pen pressurized wouldood write underwater, So I had my space pen and I would take notes in my ownillegible shorthand anyone but me. And then at the end of the day, I had a bigger notebook a spiral notebook that I would transcribe those notes into an ad commentary in the tent because it was really hard to take. But you know, there were times I couldn't take notes. A lot of the key events you know, it was I ran out of oxygen at twenty eight thousand nine hundred feet For ninety minutes waiting to go down on the one rope decided to repel down when thirty thirty twenty five, thirty people were coming up. you know Frostbite heaven there. I couldn't do any I couldn't pull a pen out. I could barely stand there clutching, you know my anchor So yeah, there was a lot of it depending on memory and memory at altitude is incredibly unreliable. So when I got back I interviewed anyone on that expedition who would talk to me Dozens of interviews. Some people I interviewed three or four times comparing, you know their version to someone else's and it was so hard to even find dis find agreement about the most basic things that sure, there's a lot of unreliable information or you couldn't trust. And I did my best to fact check it all. I still got written mistakes. One of the pleasures It wasn't my ide The thirty edition was my publisher's idea, but I'm really grateful for it because it allowed me in this new edition to correct many of the small and a couple of big errors that I'd made. And that's a gift. I don't you know when you Almost anytime you write a book, there's going to be errors, any book And usually that's it. It's set and type and It goes away. But if your book happens to keep selling over the years, they have new printings, even if it's not a new edition where you can often persersuade your publisher to let you correct errors And I like to do that. I mean, people hold that against me. see you keep Changing stuff. Well, yeah, I learned I was wrong and I corrected it I think it's really important to get a ot. So some people see that as a fault. I see this I'm much more open about you know, when I make a mistake and really want to correct it And so yeah, I'm grateful for this edition. Speaking of memory, what do you remember about being on the summit on may tenth, nineteen ninety six? I remember that I was desperate to get down. I mean, I realized I made a horrible mistake U So We each had three bottles of oxygen in Rob Hall's team, which now people would think, why do you only give you three? But's that was the norm then. Each bottle if you kept it at half flow would last you about six hours which should be enough time for you get up and down alive. We were so slow because another big mistake Rob and Scott made was they hadn't they emphasized how important it was to fix ropes ahead of time You know, ropes over the most dangerous parts so we could just clip a Jumar, this device that would safeguard us. Those ropes weren't fixed almost anywhere So and they had to be fixed in a few key places and that slowed everything way down. So by the time I got to the South summit, where you can see the summit, it's only just above you But it's still, you know, an hour away U I decided and Robert often told us, you shouldn't need your third Auction bottle for your sent. You want to save it? contingency plan for the descent. If you need three bottles, it shouldn't be there. I believe that. Um, so I went I I didn't have my third bottle. I went to the top for two and I realized it was this traffic jam I'm stuck here. I'm not moving for A long time Once I can get to the top, I better do it fast and get down. So I got this summit There was one person hadhead of me, Anatoy Buchreb had been there a little before I was and I immediately At his request and the person right behind me was my guide, Andy Harris. I took photos of them I didn't even spend five minutes on top. I had all these flags and shit I was gonna get pictures of. Didt never take them out of my pack. I just knew I needed to get down before my gas ran out or I was fucked So I turned around, I headed down as fast as I could And he was right behind me. I get to this the crux pitch, the steepest thing where the fixed rope was. It's called the Hillary Step I look over to clip into the rope to propeel down. and here's the first of or the second or third of the, you know twenty five people coming up and I realized I'm the doomed. And you know, ten minutes later, my oxygen ran out and I just sat there for ninety minutes waiting to go down So yeah, when I got to the summit, I've climbed enough stuff, had climbed a lot of difficult things, difficult peaks by then and realized Someone's only halfw And most people die on the descent. And I did not want to die. And so I was, you know, the summit was the summit, but I was really concerned about getting down. I had been the whole way up When I was going down, it was the same thing. I don't know that my that other people that day were as concerned about going down, but I was really concerned You got back from Nepal And I was surprised to learn you wrote this piece in five weeks. It all happens very, very fast. What do you remember about the writing process I remember Mark Bryant, my editor said, Look, John, you know, you've just had this really traumatic experience. feeleel free Geno You know, just Wait, wait months till you write it. But I also knew that also But'd be great if you could, you know, we could get it in the September issue And I said, I really want to get in September to issue. I want to I saw this as it would be this cathartic experience. I was really You know, angry and upset I had really bad PTSD, although I didn't realize it then. So I said, I'm just going to write this. just and I'm a really slow writer normally, but you know I interviewed a lot of people as I was writing And I had to turn it in, turn the piece in, I think at the end of July. The September issue was published first week of August And as soon as I turned it in in July, I realized I made a huge mistake One huge mistake about Andy Harris, I had believed. He had died. Falling down the loadsy faces a long story uh, when really he had gone back up to try to help rescue Doug Hanson help Rob rescue him and he had died up there. And I had told it wrong in the book, much to the anguish of his family. I felt terrible. This was pre internet There was no online outside online. So, you know, in the next issue, Mark ran a correction, but I felt terrible about that And soon after that By beginning of September Around, you know, after the piece had come out, I realized I need to write more. I have not. There's been no catharsis. I need to write a book turn this into a book like thing. And I'd done that with into the wild People don't realize I think I Venir was my first book. It was my second real book the forest was into the wild, which had also been an an article, an assignment from Mark Bryant for Outside. And I turned that into a book And in fact, it had just gotten on the best seller list when it left for Ebreis So you know, I knew how to do that. I realized that writing an article is actually a great way to write a book. You have your outline You have You've done a lot of the research, you know what research you need to do. So I decided to do that for into thin air Unfortunately, I'd made a commitment to fly to Antarctica. at the end of November And so I had to write the book now. I had basically less than three months to write the book. Three mons. And I did that too. So I turned it in before I went to Antarctica. When he came back in the spring, Just before publication, I made, you know, some corrections in copy editing. And then that was published in April of ' ninety seven. So these two books, bang bang You know, I was I just been one it was such a relief to go to Antarctica where there was no contact with The real world. It was just my butt climbing buddies You know, at first I was really skittish about climbing in. I was climbing these big concrete, you know like sorry, granite towers in Aarctica. One was the size of half dome, this vertical spire beautiful. And to be there, just focus on the climbing, it was the best thing for my mental health Th then I came back and All the turmoil and controversy over Everest was raging and my book was published and that was gas on the fire It was all kind of I had to go in a book tour U I was grateful for the first book tour because my publisher sent me a book tour, what author wouldn't. And The second one it was just every day, you know for over a month and just burnout. and it was controversial and I just it almost killed me literally. so Um, yeah Uh yeah, it was, uh, E Everest I really this is, you know, I've said this before. peopleeople don't believe it. I wish I'd never gone Davvers. It was a big mistake I didn't belong there, I didn't have the highalalth experience. U The outcome was horrific. Um I'm really glad I wrote the book, having gone there. I'm really glad I wrote the book. People have misinterpreted, they think because I didn't want to go to Everest, I didn't want to write the book. No I definitely wanted to write the book Was into thin air better for having been written faster, do you think? I think it was. A lot of people think I should have waited. It would have been more measured. It wouldn't have been It feels much more honest emmotionally honest. I think my anger and self loathing. come through in that book. And so I'm glad I wrote it when I did. I think it has an authenticity and reads in a way that it wouldn't have And it was, you know, I've never written that fast before since. And so I don't can't really tell I you know, I And a weird thing So u I had to go to Santa Fe, drive to Santa Fe I't know a couple months ago mayaybe a month before this book things started for this thirtieth anniversary issue. And it's a six hour drive from where I live in Colorado. so I decided I knew I needed I should reread the book before I actually go on this publicity tour. I said, you know, that's a good way to kill two hours. I found an old audio version of the book on cassette tapes that I never listened to and listened to it on the way down for six hours and it blew my mind. Once I got over the sound of my own voice, which I's just cringe to hear myself reading It was very weirdly powerful to hear myself reading out loud this book and it at one point brought me to tears and you know, many times I was going, o, Jesus. I should have fixed that But it was a very powerful experience. It was very one of the strangest things I've done What's your grade to skill as a writer as you see it I hate onlyn skill as not only, but my greatest skill is I am obsessive And so I edit My first girafts are horrible Every sentence in Indathine Air and every other book I've written has been rewritten at least a hundred times. probablyb a lot more than that and that's my gift is when I write it, I can't tell it's bad. When I reread it, I can see some of what's bad. When I reread it the hundredth time, I haveve fixed it up pretty good. That's the That's the great thing. I mean, I envy musicians so much because What they do is so moving. I've been in these concert halls when you're fifteen thousand people are on the same wavelength. That's that emotional power But and I am envious of them It's also some of these systems I know is it just sort of They's the inspiration just comes to them. They don't get musiciian's block, likeike I get writer's block What I'm grateful about writing is you don't have to perform it. You can You can revise it a hundred times before you publish it and no one knows the better, you know, So you can make it as good as you're willing to make it. And I like that. I need that How'd you feel about the commercial success of Iath Thin Air Very mixed You know, I had survivors guilt terribly And now I got rich off that and it really made me feel shame, intense shame. Luckily, In nineteen right about the same time the article came out, I got involved with the American Himalan Foundation, Himalayan Foundation, most Americans say which is an incredible organization. It was founded in nineteen eighty one by climbers and does great work for the people of Nepal And I got involved with them. It was a place to give to off looad a lot of money so I didn't feel as bad and I've been big donor, and I'm now the board chair of this organization, which is very rewarding and always has been. So yeah, it really helped heal me to do that because the book Yeah, the book was not good for my soul I was reading an interview you gave with for the book The New New Journalism It's true that The success of this book and the success of Into the Wild allowed you to push aside magazines and just focus on writing books from that point in your career. Yeah, yeah. I mean, intoo the Wild would have been enough. you know, at that point, even within the Wild I thought this is great because I I realized I like going deep. I like writing long. Long form was, you know, I was always being told You know, you got to cut this down by seventy five percent. So to be able to go along, I love that. And now that I had some, you know, income in the bank, I didn't have to I mean, before then, you know, up up until I went to Everest Be I hadn't really been paid anything. I got a thirty thousand dollars advance for into the Wild which just paid for the three years I'd spent writing it. So for the first time in my life, I had money, I wasn't Literally I mean I wasn't you know, my car would die and I would ride a bike. My wife and I wouldn't have a car for three months to get aord. So yeah, it really changed it was nice being able to that was one of the the greatest things about the success of those first two books was being able to give up you know, magazine writing for book writing. I got lucky there. Do you read reviews of your books Yeah, ye, I do. I mean, it's painful. It's less painful now. I think it's valuable. I mean 's valuable even when you think the reviewer is wrong it's good for your humility to realize I don't, I mean My books are so controversial and I've never into the wild was hugely controversial. Most of the state of Alaska hates me to this day for writing them I got used to people Hate mail. I mean, outside magazine got serious bomb threats from into thin air. like I think, you know, it was all bullshit but they they took them seriously. I think they called the FBI, can't remember, but So yeah, there were a lot of threats. There was a lot of I've gotten a thick skin, you know, that's a good quality to have the state of Alaska was bad at you because they thought you'd made a hero of Chris McCanalas and other people would try to do what he did Yeah, that's what they said. I think a lot of it is that he reminds them too much of their younger selves when they came up. And now, you know, Alaskans Most of Alaska were not born there U And they all, not all, but a lot of them are like that once you become You know, you've got the car heards and the extra tuff boots and you you're living, you know, in the outskirts of Fairbanks and you're a real Alaskan, then it's sort of embarrassing to look back at your cringy, youthful self who is a lot like Chris Mcanless. I mean, I really believe that I mean, I'll get I'll take a lot of hate just for saying that, but I take it I know John, there's a whole body of work that's like reactions to into thin air, which we don't need to delve into here. But how active are those disputes today Oh, I think they're active. I mean, I I had this YouTuber a year ago. and I'm told I'm totally still at it, but you know, I wrote all these refutations of his his vide and turned him into video not very skillfully and fr version. So I've done that as out there. I just I have this thing when I'm accused of getting stuff wrong U I'll investigate and correct it if I really did get wrong. But when when I'm right, I don't The the This started with when Iath Thanair came out and there was this big dispute, people felt it was unfair to Anatoly Bucharb, the hero, one of the heroes of the mountain. And I disagreed with that. and The Columbia Journalismviewed, which was the at the time, sort of arbiter of good and bad in journalism U published an article called Something like when bestsellers G get it wrong, and it cited three best selling books or the author got it wrong. One of which was mine And the author of that article, who is a professor a respected professor at an a journalist himself at Missouri Uh, I called him up and said, what? what the hell? You know, you didn't even callall me a fact check as well You know, you never these been out this has been out here for a year and you've never said anything to indicate you thought these criticms of you were wrong. So I assumed you accepted them and I shit that I realize no, he's right and that I should in the future make an effort to refuse stuff. So that's what I did with I Thin Air back in ' ninety eight that and that's what I did again last year when the YouTuber was going after me. I just want My side of the story out there I'm a big fan of let people read them. There've been like at least twenty five books about the ninety six Sscessor. Let people read everything and make up their own mind. I'm not going to persuade people. I mean you know, you know this from all the writing you've done that A lot of people you write something ironically and people take you seriously, you write something seriously and they take you ironically that you can't predict how people are going to interpret what you write and you shouldn't try to. So some people are going You know, hate what I write. Okay, great, you know, Here's my S out side of the story, makeake up your mind Your book about a disaster on Everest had the odd effect of convincing more people to climb Everest. What do you attribute that to That was, well, looking back, I should have seen that I attributeed to human nature I mean, I really believed, I feared that my interin air was going shut down the guiding. that was going to kill it in the cradle guiding on Everest. And I had friends who were guides and they were going to hate me. In fact these friends told me, this is the best thing that ever happened to us. And they were right. and I didn't see that. Part of it is Everest And now you've added this, you know, wow, Everest killed all these people now. if I climb Everest, I' even more prestige because I'm a badass because I climb the mountain You know, I mean, literally, that's part of it. I mean, climbing We wouldn't be climbing without risk. It's an important part of it And it's an important part of Everest. with Everest, people I think a lot of people go to Evest like the idea of risk, but notot when tragedy strikes, nobody likes that. And that's what concerns me is U I mean, every is a lot safer, but it's still really dangerous. Right now, as we speak, this year on Everest, it was a weird and bad season because there was a very it Kumu ice fall, the first real dangerous challenge was closed for two weeks in early April when it's always open and that's when people are climatizing and putting gear up. So for the whole season was two weeks shorter And this year there's rec records of reccord number of people trying to climb memers. There's anywhere from eight hundred to a thousand are expected to try to summit. And right now, finally the mountain has been open. and just in the past few days, I think about I just eat yesterday Well today Wednesday in Nepal, I think Probably close to a hundred people have climbed it today There's still, though, more than six hundred people waiting climate, and they're all going to do that. They have to do that between now and the end of the month So there's going to be intense crowding over the next few days and that a really denigates the vibe if you're climbing Everest, and envision, you know, I'm the great conquor of Everest, but you're standing alone like you're at the you know, Department of Motor vehicles, which literally I just saw a picture of the lines yesterday. It was like literally, you know, just back to back people, as far as you could see for a thousand two thousand feet up the Litzy face. Not only that, those crowds have led to deaths in the past and could lead to deaths in the future will at some point. So it's really dangerous right now. I'm nervous I hope everyone gets up and down fine, but they're not going to do it alone. They're not going to have the outountain to themselves. It'll be crowded It's such a strange reaction. It it reminds me of somebody that watched Scarface or Goodflds and said, you know, I wantan to be a gangster. It's like, actually the moral of the movie was the opposite. N Not to do those things, but R. Well I mean within the Wild, you know people became became really enamoreative Christmas Camas. there became this sort of cult Pilgrrooms and same thing, he, you know, he almost drowned trying to He tried to get back to civilization. The river was high. He tried cross, almost drowned decided to go back and wait, be patent and wait till September. All Several people, at least three have died in that river from drowning, and you'd think they would have seeing the danger of that having read the book, but did Bur peopleeople are risk takers When you were writing a book, did you read other books as inspiration Oh yeah. I mean I always do that. always have withith Everest, I didn't really have time. but I've always I like to read and it's a way of procrastinating. So yeah, always When I have writer's block instead of actually writing, I'll I'll sustain the writer's block by reading great writing, I hope will sustain me, you know so That's what we tell ourselves, right? If I just read this book, then I'll remember how to write something Yeah What do you find yourself reading these days Oh man, I read a lot of fiction. I really like there's a a female writer from the Great from UK named Samantha Harvey. I read the but I still read the same books I have always read Annie Pr, Annie Dayill Lard. I like the Annieies, Anne Patchett, Anne Lamot. I mean, I love Cuama and I love Barry Lopez U John McPe I mean, that's how I learned to write literally by reading those books over and over and over figuring out how to discern good from bad. When we talked a few years ago, you told me you'd stopped writing books Why'd you stop U A, I'm seventy two. And I would like to spend my fininal years not writing, living instead of writing. and The last book, real book I wrote um was Missoula rape and justustice system in a college toown, which is really really gutting to write, It really took it out of me and I just the risks to my subjects, it just I said I can't do this again. And I just decided then and there, I'm not writing any more books And I think people are starting to believe me now, my publisher You know, initially, Bill Thomas, I have a great editor and publisher at Douled Day. He thought Wait, who's offering you more money? What? And I said No, B, you'll be the first to know if I But I don't think you believed me until pretty recently Have you seen an idea over the last few years that made you waver even for a second? I think. Not for a second, but you know what, yeah You know, I'll read something and go, who, that would make a great book But within ten seconds, I go, thank God, I don't have to write that. you know, literally. I mean, I've not come close going back on my pledge to write no more books to myself, my wife, my publisher And I don't have no regrets about that. I mean, I still write a lot I'm still involved in deeply involved in a number of nonprofits, including the American Himalayan Foundation. And I write for some of them a lot, for some a little bit. I write stuff that most I mean, almost nothing I'm writing now will ever see the light of day I left still, I mean I used I still hate writing But when I don't have to really finish anything or don't have to write, you know It's an epic length book. It's just a memo Um I can still make that last week, by procrastinating, but it's just doesn't hang over me It' like a book would John Crack Howard, it's always great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on the press boox. Thanks for having me All right, before we go, a couple books I want to put on your radar The first is the thirtieth anniversary edition of I Thin Air. withith a new introduction by John Crackower. That's out from Vintage right now The second one is a book that I have pressed into the hands of many a young journalist, including Kevin Clarark, not that many years ago It's called the New New journalism Conversations with America's best nonfiction writers on their craft. It was put together by a guy named Robert S. Boyon, who once upon a time wrote for New Yorker and has also taught journalism And what Boyon did was he got writers like Kraackhower and Lawrence Wright and Michael Lewis and Susan Orleene to give these long, fascinating interviews about where they get their ideas and how they approach various ethical issues in journalism and where they actually write those great books and pieces. What does their office look like? What times of day do they write Absolutely fascinating book And one that I would recommend not only to any journalist, but anybody who's ever been interested in finding out where those great pieces and books come from you will be fascinated by it and you won't be sorry or Someone other than me will give you your money back All right, that's the press box I'm Brian Curtis. Bx to magic by Isaiah Blakeley and John Romer Coming up on the old press box, Sarah Longwell of the Bllwork is going to be here with me in the studio in LA to talk politics and media. Joel Anderson's here on Thursday, and of course We will have more lukewarm takes about the media.'s get in. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responssees set upp required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus