Into Thin Air starts as follows:
Straddling the top of the world, one foot in Tibet and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently at the vast sweep of earth below. I understood on some dim, detached level that it was a spectacular sight. I'd been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care.
It just gets more riveting.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/09/the-annals-of-long-form-journalism/182746/
