Anatoli Boukreev (1958–1997)

Non-fiction about the tragedy on Mt. Everest in May, 1996. It focuses on two expeditions and the elements that led to death on the South face. I had previously read Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer’s account of the disaster, which implicates Anatoli Boukreev’s actions as a contributing factor to the fatalities. Krakauer was a client-climber on the Adventure Consultants expedition and Boukreev was a guide on the Mountain Madness team. At the time I made a mental note to read The Climb to find show more out Boukreev’s side of the story.

Mountaineering seems to attract strong personalities, and each of these two believes he is correct. In the end, like many tragedies where numerous people have taken part, each person has a different experience, and each remembers what happened differently. This book clearly states Boukreev’s philosophy and cites evidence to back up his position, refuting Krakauer’s assertions.

The Climb tells a riveting story. It highlights the importance of preparedness, leadership, and communication in the extremely hazardous environment of high altitude climbing. I felt it occasionally slipped into repetition and a bit of defensiveness, but I can understand the reasons for it. There are several appendices included, and I found it very informative to read the transcript of the Mountain Madness team’s debriefing made a few days afterward.

In the end, I was glad to have read both accounts and now feel I have a more complete understanding of the tragedy. Recommended to anyone who has read Into Thin Air or is interested in extreme sports, especially mountaineering. show less

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by the late great Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt was, at its heart, a direct rebuttal of Jon Krakauer's assertions in Into Thin Air that Anatoli Boukreev abandoned the clients he was hired to guide up and down Everest on that fateful day, May 10, 1996, when five climbers from two different commercial expeditions perished in a surprise storm on their descent from the summit.

The late Anatoli Boukreev was considered by many the best mountaineer in show more the world at the time the events documented in The Climb occurred, with nearly a dozen 8,000m peaks in his pocket, including ascents to the top of Everest and several other of the highest Himalayan mountains without oxygen. His physical conditioning and acclimatization techniques for thriving in high altitudes remain arguably unsurpassed almost two decades since his untimely death on Christmas, 1997, in an avalanche on Annapurna. And more importantly, they remain practical examples of what you need to do — and how you need to do it — in order to survive the insane Everest ordeal.

But did being an expert mountaineer necessarily preclude the possibility of Boukreev making a fatal mistake; namely, abandoning his clients high up on Everest in a death zone whiteout in order to save his own skin? Depends on who you ask, though I would reply, based on reading The Climb and Into Thin Air, with a hearty "hardly." According to Boukreev, his swift descent from the summit ahead of the clients he was hired to protect and to guide was part of the plan determined beforehand by his expedition leader, Scott Fischer. Unfortunately, Scott Fischer was one of the victims that horrific afternoon and evening on the mountain, and so he can obviously neither confirm nor deny Boukreev's claim. Boukreev, after descending, did in fact go back out into the swirling whiteout and singlehandedly save several climbers, but could he have saved more — saved everyone?— had he not left the climbers in the first place? Pure conjecture. Who knows? Who could definitively say? Not Krakauer, although he apparently thought he could. Funny how what Krakauer alleged Boukreev of doing he did himself: swiftly descending from the summit of Everest in order to save his own foolhardy ass. Granted, Krakauer was a journalist with some lesser climbing experience who by his own accounts in Into Thin Air probably never should have attempted Everest in the first place (ya think?), while Boukreev was a mountaineering professional. But regardless, Krakauer can't legitimately claim to know the outcomes of every what-if scenario culled from what would've had to have been an exponential number of unpredictable contingencies that day, unless he were God. And I seriously doubt God's last name is Krakauer.

Incredibly, even almost twenty years after Boukreev's death, the controversy — did Boukreev behave appropriately or not as a guide, did he? didn't he? — still rages. It's ludicrous. The bickering that's gone on back-and-forth in this-mountaineering-magazine or that-online-climbing-forum between Krakauer's adherents and Boukreev's staunch defenders amounts to more than all the accumulated literature ever written about Mt. Everest, and yet it all amounts to nothing, to so much redundant rhetoric of he-said she-said regarding facts that can never be known. I wholeheartedly agree with Mark Horrell's observation that sometimes, no one is to blame when climbers die on Everest. After reading and reflecting upon Boukreev's side of the controversy in The Climb, I'm convinced this was also the case in the dire sequence of events that transpired May 10th, 1996, on Mt. Everest. The Climb is a riveting and painstakingly detailed remembrance recorded within days of the disaster by Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt. Among mountaineering memoirs, it ranks right up there with the best ever written about Everest. show less

Ammetto di avere affrontato la lettura dei due resoconti con spitito partigiano, e di essere decisamente team Boukreev :D
Ci entrano simpatie culturali e di classe, credo, e l'antipatia per la spocchia con cui un americano senza esperienza specifica ritaglia giudizi lapidari su un professionista silenzioso che ha salvato un sacco di vite, verosimilmente perché il professionista si era più di hna volta rifiutato di fare l'intrattenitore dei turisti. Poi ovviamente c'è la questione del show more perché Boukreev si comportava così quando aveva accettato un profumato stipendio per tenere allegri e sicuri proprio quei turisti ma qui subentra la classe: Boukreev era povero in canna, da una repubblica ex-sovietica, e se voleva continuare a portare avanti la sua visione dell'alpinismo himalaiano non aveva molta altra scelta che accettare i soldi e scendere a compromessi. Krakauer lo giudica dalla prospettiva dell'americano benestante e entitled, e a me semplicemente quest'ingiustizia non va giù, qualunque fosse la verità sulle ore fatali intorno alla vetta e sul comportamento di Boukreev prima della crisi finale. show less

When I first read Krakauer's book I found it an interesting story; but the author himself came across as a jerk, constantly praising himself for his abilities to out-perform the more experienced members of his team. It wasn't until later that I heard of the controversy over his portrait of Boukreev. So I read "The Climb." Krakauer speaks of things he was in no position to know, and when his errors were pointed out to him, he stubbornly refuses to correct his mistakes. Clearly Scott Fischer show more was out of his league in trying to organize an expedition. Not only was he absent from camp at times Boukreev needed to consult with him but he was plagued with illness he wouldn't own up to. Essentially Krakauer accuses Boukreev of not doing things he wasn't hired to do in the first place. But what the heck. Everyone else is dead and Krakauer isn't; plus he's backed by a big publisher, so it's unlikely things will ever be corrected. Boukreev comes across as a disciplined, kind, and caring man. While Krakauer slept in his tent, Boukreev heroically risked his life saving others. show less