The Climb
By Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt (St. Martin’s Press, 1997)
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 255
Via; Library Book Sale
On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by some of the finest, most experienced climbers in the world set off on the final leg of a five-day climb to the top of the world. Along the way, things went terribly wrong. Traffic jams along the route, miscommunications, inexplicable delays that burned up vital oxygen. Questionable leadership and decisions. A ferocious rogue storm. Time. All at the cruising altitude of a 747. All conspired to kill. Eight climbers from three expeditions died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit.
It remains one of the worst disasters in the history of Mount Everest.
Several survivors wrote memoirs after the disaster. Climber and journalist Jon Krakauer published his first-hand account of the tragedy in 1997, Into Thin Air. It was a bestseller. Anatoli “Toli” Boukreev, a guide with Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness team, felt impugned by the book. Toli co-authored his version of events in The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, also published in 1997.
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