Paperback: Mountains have the power to call us into their realms and there, left forever, are our friends whose great souls were longing for the heights. Do not forget the mountaineers who have not returned from the summits. - Anatoli Boukreev
The mountain doesn't play games. It sits there unmoved. - Bruce Barcott, "Cliffhangers", Harper's Magazine, August 1996.
The Climb (1998) is a professional high-altitude guide's personal account of the Everest disaster. The book is also partially a response to Krakauer's account of the same 1996 Everest climb in his book Into Thin Air (1997), which appeared to criticize some of Boukreev's actions during the climb. After The Climb was published, DeWalt leveled many public criticisms at Krakauer concerning the accuracy of each man's account of what happened on the mountain during the 1996 climbs. Krakauer detailed the disagreements and his rapprochement with Boukreev, in the postscript to the 1999 edition of Into Thin Air. Reinhold Messner, widely regarded as perhaps the best climber in history, who mastered the first fast alpine-style ascents of Everest and multiple Himalayan peaks without oxygen, claimed he knows Boukreev, and he was like Krakauer describes - arrogant and unfeeling. He dismissed this book as being ghost-written.
On 10 May 1996, three expeditions headed by expert leaders attempted to scale the world's largest peak - Mount Everest's Southeast Ridge - but as darkness approached, things went terribly wrong. A ferocious and fatal blizzard caught twenty-three men and women, including leaders Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, rendering them completely disoriented and out of oxygen.
Moreover, crowded conditions and bad judgement, not to mention the bitter storm stopped many climbers in their tracks. Others were left for dead, or stranded on the frigid mountain. Alone and climbing blind, Anatoli Boukreev, head climbing guide for the Mountain Madness expedition, stepped into the heart of the storm and brought three of his clients down alive.
Here is his amazing and honest story of an expedition fated for disaster, of the blind ambition that drives people to attempt such dangerous ventures, and of a modern-day hero, who risked his own life to save others. It also includes the transcript of the Mountain Madness debriefing, as well as G Weston DeWalt's history and analysis of the Boukreev-Krakauer debate. Lastly, this edition of The Climb is dedicated to the memory of those who never made it back from the mountains.
About the authors: Anatoli Boukreev (1958-1997) was one of the world's foremost high-altitude mountaineers. Twenty-one times he went to the summit of the world's highest mountains. For his heroic actions on Mount Everest in May 1996, he was awarded the American Alpine Club's highest honour, the David A Sowles Memorial Award. He died in an avalanche in 1997 while attempting a winter assault on Annapurna in Nepal.
G Weston DeWalt is a writer and documentary filmmaker who lives in Pasadena, California. He was not part of the expedition but provided accounts from other climbers and tied together the narrative of Boukreev's logbook.
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