Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

Stuart Hutchison shakes Krakauer awake by 6:00 am on May 11; Stuart tells Krakauer that Andy Harris isn’t in his tent. Krakauer quickly checks the surrounding area—he is convinced that he saw Harris arrive back the night before, sliding down the steep ice face to Camp Four. However, seeing steps leading away from Camp Four and toward the Lohtse Face, Krakauer concludes that he must have become disorientated and fallen. The battery on the only radio at Camp Four dies. Base Camp implores the South African team to supply theirs to assist in the rescue mission, but they refuse.

Later, Krakauer interviews Martin Adams, a member of the Mountain Madness team, and realizes that in his state of hypoxia, he mistook Martin Adams returning to camp for his friend Andy Harris, causing significant pain to Harris’s family.

Fischer finally reaches the summit at 3:40pm. He complains to Lopsang, who was on the summit waiting for Scott, that he felt unwell. Lopsang convinces Fischer to start descending. Soon after, at 4:00 pm—two hours after Rob Hall’s original turnaround time—Hall sees Hansen approaching and rushes down to help him to the summit. At Hall’s urging, the two start descending immediately.