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Jon Krakauer (April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer known for several bestselling nonfiction books. Some of his most popular works include Into the Wild, Eiger Dreams, Into Thin Air, Where Men Win Glory, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Three Cups of Deceit.
A regular correspondent for Outside, Krakauer was a member of the Adventure Consultants team involved in the infamous 1996 Everest disaster, while on assignment to report on commercialization on the mountain. His accounting of the incident, which saw eight climbers perish in a storm and led to the deadliest season in Everest history at the time, was published in the book Into Thin Air. The work won several awards, including Time magazine’s Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1954, Krakauer was one of five children. He grew up largely in the Pacific Northwest after the family moved to Corvallis, Oregon when Krakauer was two. Krakauer began climbing at the age of eight, at his father’s encouragement, and had summited Mt. Rainier (14,411 feet) by the age of 10, in 1964. He also was a member of the tennis team during high school. He earned a degree in Environmental Studies from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, graduating in 1976.
Following college, Krakauer focused on climbing, while making a living as a commercial fisherman and carpenter around the Pacific Northwest, in Colorado, and Alaska. Of particular note, in 1977 he established a new route solo up the East Ridge of Devils Thumb (9,077 feet), a notoriously technical but picturesque peak in Alaska’s Stikine Icecap. Krakauer spent five weeks alone in the region during the process. An account of the climb and descent appears in his books Eiger Dreams and Into the Wild.
The same year, he met his future wife, Linda Mariam Moore. The couple married in 1980, living in Seattle, Washington. By the early 1980s, Krakauer was able to make a living full-time as a writer.
To date, his work has appeared in many magazines beyond the outdoor sphere, including GQ, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Smithsonian. An article he wrote for the latter publication about Rainier won a Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism. A variety of essays penned during the 1980s were published together in Krakauer’s 1990 book Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains, his first full-length work. During this period, among other climbs, he made a 1992 ascent of the Patagonia spire Cerro Torre (10,262 feet).
