“What makes climbing great for me, strangely enough, is this life-and-death aspect. It sounds trite to say, I know, but climbing isn't just another game. It isn't just another sport. It's life itself. Which is what makes it so compelling and also what makes it so impossible to justify when things go bad.”

American writer and mountaineer

Jon Krakauer is an American writer and mountaineer. Born in 1954, he is known for nonfiction books that draw on outdoor adventure, danger, and endurance, including Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. He also wrote numerous magazine articles. Krakauer was part of the 1996 Everest expedition that ended in disaster, and that experience later became the basis for Into Thin Air. His work often examines the risks people take, and the human cost of ambition, belief, and survival.