Into Thin Air
Vocabulary

4 uses

Like most veteran Everest guides, Groom believed that although it was acceptable—and, indeed, aesthetically preferable—to do without bottled oxygen when climbing on one's own, it would be extremely irresponsible to guide the peak without using it.

aesthetically = in consideration of beauty

62 uses

many of those who died had been far stronger and possessed vastly more high-altitude experience than I.

altitude = elevation

9 uses

Everest had killed more than 130 people since the British first visited the mountain in 1921—approximately one death for every four climbers who'd reached the summit—and that many of those who died had been far stronger and possessed vastly more high-altitude experience than I.

approximately = about (but not exactly)

1 use

Over the weeks that followed he languished in the hospital, staring blankly at the ceiling, arms curled tightly at his sides, muscles atrophying, his weight dropping below eighty pounds.

atrophying = withered or weakened

3 meanings, 7 uses

1 use

Given the disdain I'd expressed for Everest over the years, one might reasonably assume that I declined to go on principle.

disdain = lack of respect

1 use

We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.

disparate = very different

1 use

The crowds of novices being escorted to the top for a fee, huffed Sir Edmund, were engendering disrespect for the mountain.

engendering = causing

2 meanings, 8 uses

59 uses

...every now and then the trail would cross a patch of bare glacier-a translucent, frozen medium that glistened like polished onyx.

glacier = a large mass of ice that moves over land like an exceedingly slow river

(editor's note:  To see pictures, click on the Google Images link that is shown after clicking on the word link.)

Glaciers are thought of as moving very slowly and slow ones may move as little as a foot or two  a year, but there are also fast-moving glaciers that can move as much as ninety feet per day.

4 uses

To ensure success, he paid meticulous attention to detail:

meticulous = treating details with great care

59 uses

Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I ... stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet.

Nepal = a small country high in the Himalayas between India and China

6 uses

After leaving the summit, fifteen minutes of cautious shuffling over a 7,000-foot abyss brought me to the notorious Hillary Step,

notorious = well known for something bad (in this case being difficult to climb)

2 uses

Fairly or unfairly, to her derogators Pittman epitomized all that was reprehensible about Dick Bass's Popularization of the Seven Summits

reprehensible = bad and unacceptable

28 uses

The flood of Everesters therefore shifted from Nepal to Tibet, leaving hundreds of Sherpas out of work.

Tibet = an autonomous region of China; located in the Himalayas

4 uses

I say "probably" because of what transpired four days after Norton's summit assault.

transpired = happened

28 uses

At 20,500 feet, the altitude was deemed too high for safe evacuation by helicopter ... so he would have to be carried 3,000 vertical feet to Base Camp down the Khumbu Icefall,

vertical = up and down (in this case referring to the change in altitude)

(editor's note:  The distance traveled to descend 3,000 vertical feet depends upon the angle of the ground. If it is a 90 degree cliff, then the distance is 3,000 feet, but if the ground averages a 45 degree slope, then it is 6,000 feet.)