The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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

Pæan to the late mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev and his role in the calamitous 1996 season at Mt. Everest. Stylistically, it's not nearly as well-written as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Substantively, it attends mainly to the details of one particular teamʻs activities, while Krakauer's book takes a broader perspective. After reading both books, I'm not sure I understand why anyone did what they did, or even in some cases what anyone did, which is probably the point of the whole story: think Rashōmon.

This book's illustration of the Everest massif provides a better sense of vertical scale for the ascent of the glacier leading up to Mt. Everest than does Krakauer's, and the regional map includes towns at lower elevations than on show more Krakauer 's (doesn't really affect the story; I just like knowing geographical details). Krakauer's text provides more geological detail about the climb route.

I read Krakauer's book first; I wonder what I would think had I read Boukreev's first. But I will say this much: Krakauer admitted to very poor decisions of his own, whereas in this book everybody, and I mean that literally, is accused of poor decision-making – except Boukreev (I first noticed this about a third of the way through, before the summit attempt, and then started watching for mention of poor decisions by Boukreev. There were none). Fair or not, such a "Teflon ʻToli" portrayal does him no favors. show less

This is yet another perspective on the events that unfolded on Everest on the 10th May 1996. Anatoli Boukreev was the villian of Jon Krakuer's "Into Thin Air" and in this book Boukreev sets out his side of the story and West DeWalt takes the time to point out some of the inconsistencies in Krakuer's story. Having also read Matt Dickinson's book which tells the story of the storm from on the north face of Everest (The Death Zone) I am still really glad that I took the time to read this book as it balanced out some of the omissions in Krakuer's story and raises the question. What would have happened if Boukreev had climbed on oxygen that day, and stayed high on the mountain with the client climbers - the answer is that most likely show more Boukreev and the client climbers he later rescued would have died, as Matt Dickinson comments Boukreev was "The only climber with the strength to push himself out into the white-out blizzard to try and guide in the lost climbers." Whatever happened or didn't happen on Everest that day the sad fact is that several very experienced and some not so experienced climbers died due to one or more misjudgements which may not have had such tragic results on any other day. show less

4.25 stars.

This is an account of the climb up Mount Everest in 1996 that resulted in tragedy when a storm came up during the descent from the summit. Anatoli Boukreev was a guide with Scott Fischer’s group, and in Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air, he was not portrayed favourably.

Boukreev’s account of what happened gives an explanation for his actions on the mountain, so it helps fill in some blanks. It is definitely a worthwhile read to see another side of what happened and to balance out Krakauer’s book. I wish I had read it closer to the time I read Into Thin Air, so I could compare it a bit more, but I think for anyone who has read Into Thin Air, The Climb is another that should be read in order to learn more. I’m not show more sure it is quite as compelling as Into Thin Air, but still a very good account, from another perspective. Or a good place to start, even for those who haven’t read Into Thin Air. show less