I think that Eichar's conclusion is fascinating and plausible. He wraps the book up with a recreation of the hikers final day, under the circumstances he presents, and tops it off with a brief eulogy for the men and women who lost their lives so mysteriously on that mountain. It's a great finish. I thought the rest of the book was a bit off kilter. Eichar presents this as a story about himself, a character obsessed with this incident, and so there is a lot involving him that feels like pointless filler. He paints himself as amateur foreign traveler, amateur hiker, amateur detective right up until the end, so that the whole time I did not trust that he would be able to conclude anything of value. And then suddenly he's talking about landslide statistics, weather conditions, and geography and he's a grownup researcher who finally stopped admiring his totally rad snow boots. I didn't care about him as a character. He did bring the hikers alive for me, though, making me care about them. A lot. It's definitely worth a read if the story interests you at all.