"The climb he was attempting when he died . . . was an exceptionally ambitious and dangerous undertaking, " said Krakauer, the author of " Into Thin Air, " the best-selling account of how eight climbers died in 1996 when a storm swallowed them just short of the summit of Mt.
32.
Deep mining was ( and still is ), a dangerous undertaking, and although it was never the scene of a major disaster like that at the nearby beehive coke ovens which gave Coke Row its name, and again fifty-four years later, when a Mr . John Mitchell was struck by a locomotive while walking home from the colliery at the end of a shift . The date of this particular incident ( 7 Dec 1942 ) suggests that he may have been walking in the dark under wartime blackout conditions.
