Michael Kodas High Crimes Reviewed by AP

Crimes Soar on Everest
By JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer

Associated Press Thursday, February 14, 2008
"High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed" (Hyperion Books. 357 pages. $24.95), by Michael Kodas: If you're going to Mt. Everest, don't forget to pack a gun.

A decade after Jon Krakauer's best seller "Into Thin Air" chronicled how crass commercialism was breeding tragedy on the world's tallest peak, little seems to have changed. And if we're to believe Michael Kodas, author of the new "High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed," things may actually be getting worse.

It's no longer just unscrupulous guides charging $65,000 to lead inexperienced, macho clients to the summit. Now, Kodas informs, an uncontrolled criminal element has assailed the mountain Tibetans reverently call Chomolungma — the Goddess mother of the World. Prostitution, narcotics, physical assault, extortion and theft of indispensable oxygen tanks — if its not the brutal wind and minus 30 degree Fahrenheit temperatures at the top of the world that gets you, hundreds of your fellow conniving climbers will.

Kodas has skillfully applied the investigative skills honed as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Hartford Courant to recount in clear and unpretentious prose the tragic death of Nils Antezana.

Everything about the Washington, D.C., physician's 2004 climb seemed ill-conceived, from his choice of a dishonest and reckless guide widely denounced by the Everest community to the mere hubris of attempting the 29,035-foot peak at the advanced age of 69, with a limited climbing resume.

But none of those sins compare to the callous indifference shown by his guide, Gustavo Lisi, and the dozens of climbers who filed past the delirious Antezana on their descent through the oxygen-starved "Death Zone," leaving the good doctor to fall into a frigid coma with little more than an encouraging pat on the back.

Kodas interweaves this dramatic tale with the gripping account of his own struggle with summit fever.

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