The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest Reviews

• 
  Sarah

  After having read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, I had an impression of this particular Everest expedition that, as I have found out, is completely erroneous. Mr. Krakauer unjustly and inexcusably defamed Anatoli Boukreev by painting a false picture of an event that took the lives of five individuals and left many others ravaged and haunted. This book, The Climb, presents information as gathered by the Everest team itself and Mr. Boukreev’s account of this expedition.
  
  Not only was Anatoli Boukreev unjustly accused of wrongdoing, he was shockingly unheralded for his heroic efforts immediately following the disaster. At a time when no one else was able or willing to rescue stranded and freezing climbers, Anatoli Boukreev summoned what little strength he had left to search through a blinding and devastating storm for his fellow mountaineers. Without his aid, there would have been many more than five deaths on Everest that day.
  
  Despite Krakauer’s efforts to convince readers otherwise, Anatoli Boukreev remains one of the most respected climbers in mountaineering history and ultimately received the David A. Sowles Memorial Award for his efforts; the highest honor awarded by the American Alpine Club. He remained, until his death in 1997, incredibly humble regarding his fantastic achievements and stoically respectful of the mountains he lived (and died) in.
  
  This book was incredible. Well written, honest, and enthralling. Boukreev bravely explains the occurrences of the difficult expedition and thoroughly incorporated the events as recounted by his fellow climbers. As a response to Jon Krakauer’s poor evaluation and publication of the event, Boukreev and DeWalt paint an objective and detailed portrait of what really happened that day.
  
  While detailing the expedition, Boukreev and DeWalt also examine many of the recent developments in commercial expeditions. The business is booming and, unfortunately, that has meant many climbers attempting Everest (and other harrowing peaks) with less-than-minimal experience and questionable motives. Boukreev speaks to the consequences of these developments and dives into more philosophical questions regarding high altitude mountaineering and the concept of “purchasing” a summit.
  
  For me, this book ultimately brought honesty and closure to a highly publicized and scrutinized expedition on Everest. While Boukreev had over twenty years of high-altitude training and experience including previous Everest summits, Jon Krakauer was simply a disgruntled writer with minimal qualifications to climb a dangerous peak. Krakauer will forever be questioned in my mind as an honest and impartial journalist.
  
  Boukreev, however, has my deepest respect.
• 
  Petra time heals but a week isnt quite long enough

  Contrast this with Krakauer's
  Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster I searched for Jon Krakauer and then Into Thin Air and finally on the 6th screen the book with a cover came up. What's with this crappy search engine? where he slags off Boukreev as a guide who put his own ambitions first and didn't do enough to save people in the disaster that was the 1996 climbing seaon on Everest. What respect I had for Krakauer (limited because he was very unpleasant about one of the women who had climbed with him after sucking up to her enough to chat to her on the phone for hours) has plummeted, Boukreev was a hero saving 3 people from certain death, and everything he says is corroborated by fact and sometimes by photograph.
  
  Review to come.
• 
  Heather

  Interesting to see the counter-story, but without a doubt, Krakauer's has far more factual backing and truthfully presented research. This book was self-serving to a point of failing factually (and that is DeWalt's fault, not Boukreev's)...
  
  Since many people reviewing this book are using the space to argue Boukreevs skill and character, incorrectly assuming that this validates his account, I wanted to address some of those ideas.
  
  Some reviewers are failing to realize a few very important things, the first being a phenomenal climber DOES NOT necessarily make a phenomenal guide- in fact, guiding and climbing are two very different things!!!
  Next, I see a lot of people giving credit (rightfully so) to Boukreev for his undeniably heroic efforts in the early morning of the May 11th. BUT, how could anyone forget!??- that the tragedy BEGAN on the 10th... As a climber- i'm calling heroics not at all too-little but definitely TOO LATE!
  Yes, Hall and Scott were derelict in many ways in their leadership roles, but Boukreev made decisions early-on that directly jeopardized the safety of his entire team- and for one of those decisions (in my opinion the worst)-within this novel, he had NO meaningful rebuttal.
  
  Look, I'm an outdoor guide, nowhere remotely near the level of guiding skills required to lead this sort of undertaking, i admit- but even I, and every other part-time guide out there knows that, what you might do on a personal trip is not always what you would do as an acting guide!!!!
  
  ***bottom line: 'Guiding' without oxygen= stupid, negligent, and in this case, disastrous!!!***
  
  true, this disaster was compounded by the many many poorly-made decisions and actions of many many people- but those decisions were mostly made with starving, half-delusional brains!!! Boukreev, however, doesn't get that asterisk next to his error: he made the decision to guide without oxygen looooong before he was at altitude- and that decision, without a doubt, killed people. period.
  I'm not going to get into the fact that lots of those people shouldn't have been up there in the first place, or who's fault that is- but whether or not he liked the role (he confessed in an interview he did not), he was a GUIDE, and despite his heroic efforts at the end, and the fact that i was really and truly emotionally moved by his attitude and actions post-disaster... while reading this, i simply could not forgive him for at least that one glaring and fatal mistake.
• 
  Myke

  Anatoli is the man..., or was I should say.
  I've read a lot of comments others have written about this book, and how many people say that Krakauer's book is so much more entertaining and blah blah blah.... I look for validity in non-fiction. I happen to believe a man who's been climbing since he was a teenager and has the resume that Bourkreev has, he also seems to be a man of more action than words. Lets not forget that Krakauer is a writer and has to sell books.
  Anatoli deserves more credit than he got in "Into Thin Air."
  And someone please tell Krakauer to write a story about someone other than himself. I couldn't get through Into the wild without him throwing around all his experience and drawing parallels with Christopher McCandless.
  I lost a lot of respect for Krakauer after reading the climb. I'm sure he's a good climber, but he was nothing compared to Anatoli.
  There is another version of this story written by the Tai camp that was on the mountain at the same time. As well as Lene Gammelgaard who was in the Mountain Madness expidition with Anatoli also wrote a book.
  Note how many stars it was given. I never give 5 stars to a book.
• 
  John

  A fascinating account of what happened on Mount Everest in May of 1996. Written in response to Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" Anatoli Booukreev defends his climbing without oxygen and going on ahead of his team to reach the summit. His best reply, I thought, was his answer to Krakauer's criticism about not using oxygen. When the stragglers did not show up at base camp, Boukreev describes how he went back out into the white out and saved several people, while Krakauer simply went to sleep in his tent. True, Boukreev was a guide, and Krakauer a client, but this was a life or death situation, and Krakuer quesitoned Boukreev's judgement and commitment, when in fact it was Anatoli Boukreev, not Krakauer, who had the strength and skill to respond to the emergency and save others.
• 
  Eric_W

  I love reading about mountain climbing even though wanting to be the one-thousandth person to climb and having fixed ropes and ladders laid out by underpaid third-world sherpas hardly seems like a valid way to spend $70,000. Now Mallory's attempt is something else entirely. (I'm reading
  Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.)I read Jon Krakauer's
  Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster and very much liked it.
  
  This book was presented by some as an alternative, or rebuttal, to Krakauer's account. I have no experience climbing anything larger than small stone and so I have no way to judge the authenticity of either story, but common sense would seem to dictate that both could be right since they are both very personal stories told by the participants, all of whom were under an enormous amount of stress and whose perspective will naturally have been shaped by their very limited personal view of events. Krakauer was sent specifically to record events of that year's climb and was taking notes, so I would tend to give his account the edge. When it comes right down to it, I don't remember any substantial discrepancies between the two books and suspect that much of the controversy is manufactured for PR purposes. Much of that comes from the co-author DeWitt who tells Boukareev's story. In both versions he is portrayed as a hero; DeWitt's account just feels a bit manufactured. Of course, he wasn't there.
  
  Boukreev's account is more measured and reasoned; Krakauer's has an underlying passion that drives it and helps to make it such a wonderful read. Read both of them.
• 
  Ajeje Brazov

  Ricordi quel tizio, circa venti anni fa, ora mi sfugge il nome... scalò l'Everest senza usare l'ossigeno, tornò giù quasi morto. Gli chiesero... dissero, "Perché sei andato là per morire?" e lui disse "Non è cosi: sono andato là per vivere." (Il mondo perduto - Jurassic Park)
  
  Ecco in questa frase è racchiusa la vita di Bukreev, questo non per minimizzare la sua esistenza, anzi al contrario, è per marcare ancora di più la sua attitudine per la montagna, la sua passione sconfinata per questa avventura continua sulle vette del Mondo.
  L'Everest è la vetta più alta... si narra che le vette sopra gli 8000 m, siano 14, anzi sono 14 e pochi le hanno scalate e che siano arrivati in cima. Uno su tutti è Ed Viesturs, rigorosamente senza ossigeno. Ecco, il quesito principale della disputa Krakauer/Bukreev. Anatoli racconta che le bombole d'ossigeno... ma forse sto sconfinando e penso sia meglio leggere il libro!?
  
  La differenza dei due libri: questo e Aria sottile, sta nella narrazione, se Krakauer romanza il tutto, Bukreev cerca di essere più veritiero possibile, scandendo i capitoli con suoi interventi ed analisi della storia eseguiti da parte di DeWalt con l'ausilio di testimonianze di altri partecipanti alla spedizione.
  La narrazione si fa sempre più intensa man mano che si scala la montagna e si arriva a quote dove l'essere umano è messo a dura prova dall'aria rarefatta e dalla fatica nel scalarla.
  Una lettura doverosa, per avere un quadro più completo del disastro avvenuto quel 10 maggio del 1996, dove la spettacolarizzazione, i soldi e la fama hanno tolto la vita ad alcuni, ad altri hanno privato l'esistenza di un parente o di un amico/a ed hanno sconvolto l'anima a chi quella tragedia ha segnato un punto indelebile.
  
  Io non credo che nel nostro mondo lo spirito d'avventura rischi di scomparire. Se vedo attorno a me qualcosa di vitale, è proprio questo spirito d'avventura che mi sembra impossibile da sradicare, e che ha molto in comune con la curiosità. (Marie Curie)
• 
  Joy D

  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 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.
  
• 
  Mikko

  "The Climb" tells the story of the 1996 Everest disaster, in which a series of bad decisions and coincidences led to the deaths of 5 climbers, among them Rob Hall and Scott Fishcer, who were among the best in their professions. The focus of the narrative is the experience of Russian guide Anatoli Boukreev. To understand "The Climb" one pretty much needs to also have read "Into Thin Air", another account of the disaster authored by Jon Krakauer, who was also among those involved. In his work, Krakauer questioned certain actions taken by Boukreev, and "The Climb" is obviously also his defence.
  
  "Into Thin Air" is an obvious point of comparison for "The Climb". While Krakauer concentrated on his personal experience, Boukreev gives a wider and more technical account of the expedition. As a guide he has more to tell about the preparations of the trip and it is a matter of taste whether you prefer it to Krakauer's "human interest" approach. The approach is also dictated by the fact that Boukreev's English wasn't top notch and he most likely couldn't relate all the details of his experience to G. Weston De Walt who did the actual writing. I found the book as immersive as "Into Thin Air" and it gave me a better understanding of what transpired on the mountain in those two days.
  
  Opinion seems to be sharply divided about the causes of the accident between the Krakauer and Boukreev camps. While the text makes valid points defending Boukreev's actions, there are some unnecessary jabs at Krakauer, which fail to fully appreciate that he was a less experienced client, not a expedition guide. Krakauer was obviously wrong about Boukreev's inadequate gear. As for Boukreev's decision not to use oxygen and the descent ahead of the clients, I frankly can not make up my mind as there are too many variables.
  
  In my mind Hall and Fischer were most responsible, as they both failed to enforce turnaround times and use adequate communications gear. Both obviously paid for their oversights with their lives. Regardless of whether or not Boukreev acted correctly during the summit bid, his heroism in rescuing people during the night of 10th-11th May can not be denied. However, I do not feel that because Krakauer spent the night sleeping in his tent, he doesn't have a right to critique Boukreev. He was less experienced, he was a client, he would not have been an asset for the rescue.
  
  I would recommed "The Climb" to anyone who was fascinated by "Into Thin Air". Maybe not quite as well written, the book is still essential reading for anyone who wants a better understanding of the 1996 disaster.
• 
  Roger

  If the 1996 Everest disaster is the most famous mountaineering tragedy in history behind the death of Mallory and Irvine, it is so probably due to the efforts of one man - Jon Krakauer, with his article and book about the tragedy, Into thin air. In that book, Krakauer describes the tragedy that befell the climbers on May 10 1996 from his viewpoint as a climber in the Adventure Consultants team. During the book he has some not-so-kind things to say about Anatoli Boukreev, who was a guide for Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness expedition. The controversy that Krakauer's book sparked continues on to this day, more than 15 years after the events themselves.
  
  The Climb is Boukreev's version of events - given his lack of command of English, the book is really written by DeWalt, with liberal dosings of Boukreev's quotes framing the story - and in many ways, gives a more complete picture of the tragedy than does Krakauer's work.
  
  Both Scott Fischer and Anatoli Boukreev were mountain junkies - their whole life was predicated around climbing the great peaks of the World, and trying to finance their next adventure. Fischer, a charismatic American and great climber, looked to Rob Hall's successful business model with Adventure Consultants and thought that he could replicate that success himself, by creating a business guiding people up major climbs. 1996 was the first time he had tried to do it on Everest, and when he ran into Boukreev in Kathmandu, he jumped at the chance to hire him. Boukreev, who was down to his last few dollars, readily agreed. At the time it seemed like a win-win situation for both of them - Boukreev climbed and got paid for doing so, and Fischer could advertise his climb as having a head guide who was a true veteran of 8000 metre peaks.
  
  What rapidly becomes clear as the pages of The Climb roll on, is that while Fischer may have been a great climber, he was not a great leader. It seems that at no stage did he sit down with Boukreev or his other guides and go into any real detail on how they would tackle the peak - and he ignored Boukreev's advice on acclimatization to altitude for the clients. It also seems that he disliked confrontation, and hated to say no, so that several of the climbers who were at the South Col on May 9 shouldn't have really been there, owing to their lack of fitness.
  
  The logistics of the expedition were also far from optimal - they only had barely enough oxygen for all the people on the mountain, and the plan to fix lines to the summit was never acted upon. From the armchair point-of-view, the whole Mountain Madness setup seems to have been a disaster waiting to happen. Boukreev was worried about the fitness of the clients from the start, and having never guided before, was unsure of what was actually required of him, something that Fischer never seemed to explain.
  
  Fischer himself was not in peak form for the climb, he was exhausted, a fact that he covered up as much as he could. On the day of the summit attempt, he sent Boukreev and his other guide Neal Beidleman up the Mountain at the head of their team, while Fischer himself would sweep at the rear. The idea was, apparently, that anyone Fischer passed on his sweep would be turned around and sent back down, as if he passed them it meant it would take them too long to keep going and get back safely (before their oxygen ran out). This was a good idea in theory - in practice it was a disaster, as Fischer was so weak and slow that he didn't catch up to even the slowest Mountain Madness climbers. The other massive oversight was that neither Boukreev or Beidleman had radios, so Fischer could not communicate with them at all. The result was that most climbers summited far too late for safety. Boukreev was first to summit, but even he didn't reach the top until about 1.30pm, as he had been delayed because the ropes to the top weren't fixed beforehand as organised, so he and Beidleman had to do most of it.
  
  In 1996 the generally accepted idea was that the latest time for summiting was 2pm. Most Mountain Madness clients summited well after that, and Fischer didn't leave the summit until after 4. By that time Boukreev was on the way down. He'd spoken to Fischer when they finally crossed paths, and they agreed that Boukreev should head down to Camp IV, as many climbers would run out of oxygen before they got down, and he might need to bring up some cylinders and generally help out.
  
  Then the storm hit. Very soon whiteout conditions hit the top of the mountain, with clients and guides spread from the South Summit to the Balcony, and to the South Col itself. There were many heroic actions that night, with Boukreev's continued sorties from Camp IV to bring back climbers not the least of them. In fact his actions won him (along with Pete Athans and Todd Burleson) the David A. Sowles Memorial Award for valour. In all Boukreev personally rescued 3 people that night. The next day he climbed to the South Summit to try to rescue Scott Fischer, who had spent the night there, but found him beyond help. Tragically Boukreev was killed on Annapurna in 1997.
  
  With all the controversy that has surrounded the 1996 Everest season, a few things are made clear by Boukreev's book. Scott Fischer did not give good leadership to either his clients or his guides. Boukreev did not understand how he fitted in to the expedition - how much initiative he could take on behalf of Fischer or the clients, and whether he could order clients or Sherpas to do as he asked - which is perhaps a criticism of both Boukreev and Fischer. The logistics of the Mountain Madness activities above Camp IV were not well organised.
  
  All Mountain Madness expedition members, with the exception of Fischer, survived and got down the mountain without serious injury.
  
  The edition I read (see above) has over 100 pages of extra material, mostly rebuttals of Krakauer, and a transcript of the taped "debriefing" of the Mountain Madness team which took place at Base Camp on 15 May 1996. This is fascinating reading, and gives quite an insight into the inner characters of some of the team.
  
  If you have read Krakauer, you must read this book.
  
  Check out my other reviews at
  http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
• 
  Jocelynne Broderick

  To some degree I felt like this book was just a medium for Boukreev to defend his actions to Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) who did mention some things he felt were odd about some of Boukreev's actions.
  
  After reading Krakauer's book, I had the sense that Boukreev was slacking big time, being a snob, and not a team player. After reading Boukreev's book, I think Krakauer did take some cheap, uninformed shots.
  
  It's a case of he-said he-said.
  
  For the record, I thought it was EXTREMELY distasteful for Boukreev to include a photo of two climbers by a torso (though it looks like a body from the waist down, not a torso) he "discovered". This just adds to what I think is his feeling of superiority, as in "this fool wasn't a good enough climber to not get killed and cut in half". Imagine the man's family seeing this photo and recognizing the boots or pants and seeing that he wasn't being respected in death. And yet, when Boukreev went and buried Scott Fischer, wasn't it for that very reason, so Fischer wouldn't be disrespected?
  
  What an ass.
• 
  Kat

  It's been years since I read this book, but I distinctly remember being immediately drawn into this real-life account of the tragic events of the 1996 climbing expeditions on Mt. Everest, told by Anatoli Boukreev, a guide responsible for leading some of those climbers to safety. It's a great companion book to
  Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, by Jon Krakauer, to get a different perspective on the same events.
  
  ★★★★ ½ Stars
• 
  Sushicat

  I read John Krakauer's Into Thin Air a couple of years ago and although the actual climbing sequences were gripping, I was really annoyed at the judgemental descriptions specifically of Anatoli Boukreev. I've put off reading this book because I expected this to be part two of a mudslinging contest. I was pleasantly surprised that for most of the book the conflict with Krakauer was not a topic.
  
  The book recounts events based on information available from many other sources and adds Boukreev's comments and insights. The audiobook I listened to was very well done and gave a good impression of the issues cultural differences and a diversity of languages raised for the expeditions. Not until after the expeditions were off the mountains did the conflict actually get room in the book. Though I get the need for justification (not much mudslinging here thankfully), these passages nonetheless were rather tedious.
  
  One of the most interesting aspect of the book was the insight into the logistics and financing of a guided expedition to the top of the world. Most books on climbing focus on the technical difficulties of climbing, the motivation, the mental state. Here we learn of the difficulties of making a living off an athletic skill and the difficult it is to balance this with the pursuit of personal achievements. Evidently a skilled mountaineer does not necessarily have the skills needed to guide successfully or to ensure the complex logistics work as needed. The book highlights the need for all these skill to be included for a commercial expedition to be successful. The margin of error is very small on top of the world and poor communications can quickly turn deadly.
  
  The last part of the book recounts another expedition to Everest with a group of Indonesian climbers Boukreev supported, giving him room to explain his view on the role the expert climber should have. Rather than acting as a guide, Boukreev called his role as lead consultant. He provided his experience in climbing Everest to the group and supported their successful bid for the summit with expertise in preparation for the expedition: how to train and prepare, what equipment to use, what support staff to hire. He very strongly believes that guiding - implying taking on the responsibility for the other climbers - is not an option when climbing under such conditions. Ultimately each climber remains responsible for his own decisions on the mountain.
  
• 
  Karl

  This book by G. Weston DeWalt and Anatoly Boukreev is an excellent description of the facts surrounding the Fischer and Hall expeditions to Everest in May 1996. De Walt does an excellent job of chronicling events and clearing up discrepancies caused by other authors.
  
  Anatoly Boukreev is a hero who saved several people's lives that day. He was unfairly and unjustly criticized by other authors seeking to find a villian that day.
  
  The villians were the weather, consisting of a storm that blew up from the Indian Ocean, which nobody knew was coming, and the unfortunate bad luck of the two expedition leaders, Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, who both stayed on the mountain too late in the day and thus pressed their luck, and who would both still be alive today had either one turned around earlier. Anatoly is not the villian. Anyone who tries to tell you Anatoly was the villian is lying to you.
  
  If anyone should have seen the storm coming, it should have been the basecamp teams, who would normally have been charged with watching the incoming weather. They both failed to do so however, for whatever reason. The two teams had two-way radios and the weather information should have been conveyed to the guides and leaders on the mountain, thus warning them to turn around.
  
  Certain people who were clients did not belong on the mountain that day either. Two of those who died should not have been there. Mother Nature is unforgiving of anyone who bites off more than they can chew.
  
  The Climb is a really great book. And it tells the truth flawlessly. A great job of writing by Mr. Dewalt.
• 
  Pianogirl

  I read this book a bit less than a year after finishing Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer). It was a little hard to read about these tragic events again but I think it's important to read this book as well as Into Thin Air. You get a very different perspective - Anatoli was a guide, Krakauer was a client with nothing close to the experience Anatoli had (in high altitude mountaineering).
  In Into thin Air Anatoli is painted as the "bad guy" but in fact he was a hero who saved three lives while seriously risking his own. Krakauer's relentless attempts at discrediting Anatoli's character really baffles me.
  As you read this book you get to know Anatoli's character more and you come to understand him a lot better. What an amazing guy.
• 
  Daniele

  Non entro nel merito della diatriba Krakauer/Brukeev, non sono in grado di giudicare.
  Non so se davvero si possa dare la colpa a qualcuno per quel che è successo quel 10 Maggio 1996, so solo che una volta che si decide di andare in vetta ad un 8000 bisogna mettere in preventivo l'alta probabilità di non riuscire e la non così tanto bassa probabilità di pagare con la propria vita.
  Credo che l'errore più grande fatto in questi ultimi 30 anni sia stato quello di dare la possibilità a tutti (tutti quelli muniti di quattrini...) di scalare l'Everest o montagne simili senza avere una preparazione adeguata e senza aver fatto un percorso di scalata che parta da vette più basse e tecniche fino ad arrivare solo in fine a fare un 8000.
  Probabilmente tanta gente rinuncerebbe molto prima e molte vittime oggi ce le saremmo risparmiate, però anche qui non mi sento di criticare niente e nessuno perché mi rendo conto che per molti (probabilmente succederebbe anche a me) queste montagne generano passioni morbose e incontrollabili che li trascinano ineluttabilmente verso il loro destino, sia esso di gloria o di morte.
  
  Per quanto riguarda il libro risposta di Bukreev in sé, è meno romanzato rispetto a quello di Krakauer ma allo stesso tempo molto interessante e con un ritmo serrato nel finale.
  
  "la fine di una strada è solo l'inizio di una nuova, ancora più lunga e più difficile."
  
  Scalare sopra gli ottomila metri, dove ogni errore viene ingigantito dall'aria rarefatta, dove un sorso di tè caldo può fare la differenza tra la vita e la morte, nessuna cifra al mondo che si possa pagare può garantire la riuscita.
  
  È stata un'esperienza che non avevo mai avuto prima, essere così vicini all'addormentarsi per non svegliarsi più. Ogni tanto sentivo il mio corpo percorso da ondate di calore, non so se fosse ipotermia o ipossia, forse una combinazione di entrambe. Mi ricordo solo che gridavo nel vento, tutti noi urlavamo, ci muovevamo, battevamo i piedi, cercavamo di restare vivi. Continuavo a guardare l'orologio, sperando che il tempo migliorasse.
  
  Quando tornai in Kazakistan ero pronto a guardare di nuovo le montagne. Sentii che non ero adatto a vivere in nessun altro posto. Mi ero impegnato a scalare gli Ottomila che non avevo ancora salito, e dovevo continuare. La mia è una vita strana e solitaria, incomprensibile a molti, ma è la mia vera casa, il mio lavoro.
  
  Il metodo più sicuro di andare in alta quota è senza ossigeno, perché se vai senza ossigeno torni a casa. Senti che sei stanco, senti che sei freddo, senti che sei lento. Se hai l'ossigeno non te ne accorgi se non nel momento in cui finisce e può essere troppo tardi...
• 
  Rebecca McPhedran

  I was told to read this book after I finished "Into Thin Air"-and I am glad I did. It has been said by some reviewers that Boukreev was written as a sort of villain by Krakauer. A man who was supposed to be guiding a group of amateur climbers to the summit of Everest. According to Krakauer, he decided to leave his climbers at or near the summit and descend toward camp-thereby not giving his charges the particular guidance they may have needed to avoid disaster. This book tells Boukreev's side of the story-and to be honest it isn't that different from Krakauer's version. I liked this book because it told the story from the guides point of view. Boukreev was doing what he thought was right in leaving the clients with the other 2 guides. And in the end he went out into the major storm to rescue 4 of his clients from imminent death. So, in many minds (including Krakauers), Boukreev is considered a hero. Coordinating a rescue of the proportion has earned him some important awards. I found this book to be a great accompaniment to "Into Thin Air". The only criticism I would have is towards his co-author, De Walt, who it seems from the writing-was there. In fact, he wasn't at all. So I found his parts to be a bit presumptuous-and it was hard to take him at face value. I did really enjoy reading Boukreevs journal entries, and his perspective of what happened on that deadly day on Everest.
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  Kate

  I read this one after Into Thin Air because I knew there was some controversy created by Krakauer's version of events. This book was definitely interesting as a way to fill in the gaps, and also as an example of a different approach to telling the story of the 1996 Everest disaster.
  
  This book is often described as more "technical," but really it's just a lot more focused on describing the sequence of events. Where Krakauer's book inhabits a middle ground between talking about a transformative personal experience and reporting on a news event, The Climb tends more towards documentary or news reporting style. Although told from Anton Boukreev's perspective, there are few details of his personal or inner life; the text concentrates on what happened during April and May of 1996, interspersing text from interviews with Boukreev and other expedition members.
  
  I thought it was very worthwhile to get another account of the events of 1996, and I thought Boukreev had a valid reason to want to refute Krakauer's assertion that he has been derelict in his guiding duties. Unfortunately, I must admit that the lack of the personal angle - feelings, the big picture, whatever - does make the book drier and slightly less compelling. Also, the way in which Boukreev's co-author chooses to intersperse the recitation of events with long interview quotes makes for an uneven and sometimes confusing narrative. The transitions between quotes from Boukreev and quotes from other expedition members are very awkward.
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  Ob-jonny

  This is another account of the 1996 Everest expedition and ensuing disaster. The writer, Anatoli Boukreev was one of the guides on the Mountain Madness expedition without Jon Krakauer, and it gives more detailed information about this other group of very interesting people. Another way that it differs from Jon Krak's book is that it gives detailed stories about the months before the Everest climb when the guides had to go early and set things up with the Sherpas. It gives an account of the climb from a guide's perspective and there are many interesting techincal descriptions of how they actually climbed the mountain, including setting up ropes, ice climbing, analysis of logistics like the oxygen supply. It was interesting to hear his rebuttal of Krakauer's account which described Boukreev as being incompetent and selfish. I know that Boukreev was writing this book, but I think he was right in saying that more climbers would have died if he had stayed with them during the descent and had gotten caught in the storm with them. The fact that he went down early allowed him to be the only person in good enough condition to rescue the 3 people that he did off the South Col.
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  Ines

  Il libro più completo sulla tragedia sul Everest del 1996,non ha senso dire altro se non iniziarne la lettura.
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  Bizzy

  Required reading for anyone interested in the 1996 Everest disaster, especially those who have read Into Thin Air. It’s not possible to understand 1996 without knowing what happened on both the Hall and Fischer expeditions, and this book provides necessary detail about Fischer’s group that other accounts cannot.
  
  It’s clear from the outset that this book presents Boukreev’s perspective and was written by one of Boukreev’s friends, and therefore cannot help but be biased to some degree. Despite that, the book does an admirable job acknowledging other perspectives and describing Boukreev’s weaknesses as well as his strengths. His accomplishments are presented not to boost his ego but as evidence of his strongly held beliefs about climbing technique and strategy, and there’s an undercurrent throughout the book of something like humility – a belief that although his achievements are undoubtedly impressive in his profession, they don’t bestow Boukreev with moral superiority or prevent his decisions from being questioned. The book doesn’t try to convince the reader that Boukreev’s opinions or memories about what happened in 1996 were right and others were wrong, and one can read this book and still question Boukreev’s decisions, if they wish to.
  
  However, this book does put to rest the questions raised by John Krakauer about Boukreev’s motivations, and it’s impossible not to read this book without feeling serious doubt about Krakauer’s objectivity, at least where Boukreev is concerned. The book thoroughly rebuts many of Krakauer’s claims, many with irrefutable proof (e.g., about what Boukreev was wearing on summit day) or clear evidence of how Krakauer misquoted, took out of context, or ignored key accounts that didn’t support his conclusions. For example, it’s difficult to see an innocent explanation for Krakauer’s obviously unfounded accusation that DeWalt didn’t interview Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa because DeWalt was afraid of what Lopsang might say when DeWalt had already written Krakauer a letter explaining that Lopsang’s death in September 1996 (four months after the Everest disaster) precluded any such interview (and when the timing of his death should have made it obvious to Krakauer even without explanation).
  
  I’m perplexed that Krakauer misrepresented the facts in support of his narrative when a fully factual account would have left Boukreev’s actions open to question anyway. There was simply no need to invent a nefarious motive for Boukreev – Into Thin Air certainly isn’t improved by that invention. Reading this book retroactively soured some of my enjoyment of Into Thin Air and makes me question some of the other opinions Krakauer presents in that book as fact. If Krakauer thought that making a villain of Boukreev would obscure questions about Krakauer’s own motivations and the role played by having a journalist on Hall’s expedition, he was wrong.
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  Egita

  Grāmata par lielisku alpīnistu un traģisku notikumu Everestā 1996.gadā. Publicēta kā atbilde uz žurnālista Krakauera sarakstīto Retinātā gaisā, kas (kā runā) pamatīgi nomelno konkrētās ekspedīcijas vadošo personālu.
  Protams, situācija, ka Everestā var kāpt gandrīz ikviens, ja vien maks atļauj pārdesmit tūkstošus ieskaitīt ekspedīciju firmas kontā, ir absurda jau pašā tās idejā. Arī vainīgos var meklēt un sameklēt, cik uziet, tajā skaitā arī neadekvāto stāvokli, kādā cilvēks nonāk, atrodoties vairāk kā 8000 m augstumā.
  Traģēdija bija daudzu apstākļu un sakritību sekas. Un visdrīzāk arī likumsakarīga.
  Pieredzējušais alpīnists Bukrejevs ekspedīcijā darbojās kā gids un uz savu spēku izsīkuma robežas izglāba trīs cilvēkus. Sāpīgākais gan sekoja pēc tam - nosodījums par savtīgumu un egoismu, kā arī pašpārmetumi par neizglābto klienti un draugu.
  1996.gada 10.maija notikumi gan varbūt nebūtu izpelnījušies tik lielu ažiotāžu, ja ne neskaitāmie pretrunīgie publiski paustie viedokļi no klāt bijušajiem... Diemžēl ik gadu Everests paņem vairāku cilvēku dzīvības, bet tajā pašā laikā pievelk tūkstošiem alpīnistu.
  Manā redzeslokā šī grāmata, protams, nonāca pateicoties nesen iznākušajai filmai Everests, kas manī radīja interesi "parakt dziļāk". Visa mana cieņa un apbrīna tādiem cilvēkiem kā Bukrejevs. Iemetīšu aci arī Krakauera grāmata, jo gan jau patiesība ir kaut kur pa vidu.
  Patika. Iesaku.
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  Shannon

  A very interesting read on the tragic events on Everest in May of 1996 by one of the guides who was there and survived.
  
  I would strongly recommend reading this book if you have already read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Reading these two together does a number of things: 1) gives a balance to the stories coming off of the mountain 2) demonstrates how 2 people in the same place witnessing the same event can have such different takes on it, and 3)really demonstrates how much altitude can affect you.
  
  Happily, Boukreev had assistance writing his story and the result is a very readable book. Sadly, there will be no more books by this extraordinary mountaineer as he perished in an avalanche on Annapurna in Dec. 1996.
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  Jeanette (Ms. Feisty)

  I read this right after I read Into Thin Air, just to see the conflicting perspectives. Although the writing was better in Into Thin Air, this was an interesting book.
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  Dmitry Khvatov

  Good read.