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Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, but raised in Corvallis, Oregon from the age of 2 years, along with two older sisters. He visited Mount Hood at age four, and at the age of 8 began mountain climbing with his father, including on the dormant volcano South Sister (the third highest peak in Oregon); he remembers his first technical climbing as being the last 50 feet to the summit of Three Fingered Jack, at age 9.
He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School, and graduated from there in 1972. In 1974, he was part of a party of 7 friends pioneering peaks in the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range of Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences; though he neither expected or received a fee, he was excited by having his article published. He graduated from Hampshire College in January of 1976, and pioneered climbing the Devils Thumb in the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska in 1977, an experience he described in an essay included in his collection Eiger Dreams. Also in 1977, he met Linda Moore, a former climber, and married her in 1980. He began writing for Outside magazine, and she began a sewing business, around 1980; he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter for full-time writing in November of 1983. His freelance writing involved great variety; for instance, he wrote a monthly column on fitness for Playboy magazine.
He is noted for climbing, in 1992 on its west face, Cerro Torre in the Andes of Argentine Patagonia.
In May 1996, on assignment from Krakauer was in a Mount Everest party that reached the summit but were caught in an unexpected storm during the descent. The storm, and in his estimation irresponsible choices by professional gudes, led to the deaths of four, including famous two guides, with only Krakauer and one other climber surviving. In 1997, he published his best known work, Into Thin Air, describing that party's experiences and the general state of Everest mountaineering; it reached first place on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list, and was among the final three books considered for the "general non-fiction" Pulitzer Prize in 1998.
His books include