Everest Stories - Ryan Hinton

     This blog post is going to be pretty general, as it is related to the research that I did for my final exam when it came to Mount Everest. I was initially distraught because there were almost no firsthand accounts of climbing out there that were free and easy - like trail journals for the Camino. Luckily for me, I was able to find the copies of some of the books on the Internet Archive in time to use them for my final paper. These first-hand accounts of climbing Mount Everest were really intriguing because they directly supported the thesis that I was trying to argue for in my final paper, which was so useful. I think of the three first-hand accounts I ended up finding, the most useful was Beck Weathers and his 2000 story of Left Behind, where he is left to die on Mount Everest by himself. I think that is a particularly powerful story, and when I found out that it was able to support my arguments for how meaning is made on the journey, I was so excited. All in all, the Mount Everest stories were exceptionally useful to my final paper because they directly supported my claim and made my argument stronger. 

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