I just learned that exactly a week after this incident, Anatoli Boukreev completed the fastest solo ascent of Lhotse, without supplemental oxygen, climbing from basecamp to the summit in just over 21 hours. That man was an absolute machine.

Having watched this video, I feel better about Rob Hall.  His believing there was extra oxygen available since five of his climbers had turned around early, and so changing his turn-around time, relieves the "What the heck was he thinking?!"

Thanks for all your hard work on the 1996 disaster, Mr. Tracy!  I appreciate your dedication to truth and admire your intellectual energy.

It’s funny that the subtitles show the name Krakauer as Krack hour. His book could have been more aptly named, “Out of thin air.” Thank you for a detailed and objective analysis of the facts of a tragic experience.

And suddenly it all makes sense!

"...vanished into thin air."  I saw what you did there Mikey!

The more I hear your analysis the more it all makes sense. Thank You Mr Tracy!  The whole incident is a not surprising study of somewhat nefarious human nature. With Krakauer being the tip of that nefarious spear.

Rarely, if ever, I watch a video for the second time to better understand the facts. With every of your videos, Michael, it’s a case that I have to watch it more than twice. Your approach is as scientific as it can be, given the scarcity of evidence. Your ability to deduce it from small and sometimes trivial pieces of information is what draws my attention to your videos. I’d call it high altitude forensics, and you - the Everest detective. :) I can’t wait when you complete your mission of telling the story of 1996 Everest disaster and write the ultimate authoritative book on the subject to finally put Krakauer’s disinformation piece to rest and out of circulation.

The hypothesis of the Taiwanese taking the O2 is a grenade into the liability of why... damn.

Excellent, excellent,  excellent!  I love your research and viewpoints!

Perhaps its just the way he writes but, given that his place on the climb was 'free', Krakauer sure comes across as entitled and egotistical.

"A large portion of their oxygen cache had vanished...into thin air" 😂

Incredible investigative work Michael. You've effectively cracked the case, down to the most elusive details.

Thank you for putting some sense, with your research, into what most surely happen. I feel I'm stuck in a never ending loop of not understanding regarding the tragedy of -96. So many died for more or less "no reason".

I'm greatly looking forward to the next video. 😺

From all accounts, Doug Hanson was struggling and didn't feel good and he decided to quit and turn around. Rob Hall talked him out of it and convinced him to continue. Rob Hall didn't get any clients to the summit the previous year, which the movie implied, so he was under immense pressure to get clients to the top in 96.

Fascinating and insightful video as always! I'm looking forward to part 2 of this. I remember reading Krakauer's description of Harris insisting the bottles were empty, and not questioning his assertion that Harris had been wrong... but that always came with a slight background confusion. The lack of oxygen continued to be a problem for the rest of the descent, and later rescue attempts; if there had really been a bunch of overlooked full bottles at south summit... why didn't they appear in the narrative again later?

Krakauer's narrative asserts that Harris was wrong about the bottles being empty, but then basically continues on from that point as if the bottles really were empty, despite claiming that they were full. But Krakauer is the king of the handwave.

What is note-worthy about Andy Harris is the fact that Lene Gammelgaard noticed on separate occasions during the ascent that he wasn't feeling very well. First time if I remember correctly on the South Summit actually and the second time on the summit itself.

Thank you for this video Michael, great to see how everything is starting to add up. Before your series on 1996 disaster I always had trouble piecing a coherent story from publicly available sources and rope fixing was so vague from few sources who actually presented it as an issue, that it was hard to believe as a cause.

This is the incredible solving of a mystery, that was apparently created by a best-selling book. Amazing. A real life Sherlock Holmes

The yeti with the oxygen mask is where I lost it lmao

This is brilliant detective work.  I wish I could hit the like button fifty times.

This is fascinating and casts a LOT more light on what really happened and why. Finally after all these years I understand much better. The amount of detail-obsessive work is considerable that it must take to figure all this out from disparate sources, not all of which are consistent, and statements of (supposed) fact that you can't know for sure whether they're factual or not until otherwise corroborated. I find myself wanting to make a big spreadsheet of exactly who arrived and departed from many different points (camp, Balcony, S. Summit, etc.) at exactly what time (or with different alternate possible times noted and source cited). Some animation geek could then make a video with labeled dots proceeding. What fun that would be to see! The point about the Taiwanese  suddenly increasing their rate of ascent after leaving S. Summit is very telling. Kinda like pro athletes whose strength performance suddenly zooms up, and they're later found to have been doping. Thanks for all the work these take.