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1997 novel by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Western DeWalt

The Climb (1997), republished as The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, is an account by Russian-Kazakhstani mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev of the 1996 Everest Disaster, during which eight climbers died on the mountain. The co-author, G. Weston DeWalt—who was not part of the expedition—provides accounts from other climbers and ties together the narrative of Boukreev's logbook.

Background

The book is also partially a response to Jon 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 refutes the allegations and provides additional details in the postscript to the 1999 edition of Into Thin Air.

Boukreev was killed in 1997 in an avalanche with Dimitri Sobolev during a winter ascent of Annapurna in Nepal.

Book Reviews

A reviewer of Publishers Weekly commented "Like Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer's bestselling chronicle of the same expedition, this account is a gripping account of the Mountain Madness group's bid to reach the top of the world's highest peak, one that combines Boukreev's firsthand recollections and DeWalt's interviews with team members. But Boukreev and DeWalt, a freelance journalist, also offer a look at the mundane tasks associated with climbing, such as obtaining the necessary permits and equipment, and taking the reader through the complex preparations required to scale the mountain, including the establishment of various camps and the acclimatization process required for climbers to adjust to higher altitudes".

A reviewer of Kirkus Reviews stated "Mountain guide Boukreev tells his version of the events

The Climb
Tragic Ambitions on Everest

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A star, one that didn't belong, appeared in the night sky over the Himalaya in March 1996. For several consecutive days the star had been moving over the mountains, its trailing tail fanning into the darkness. The "star" was the comet Hyakutake. It was the beginning of the spring season on Mount Everest (8,848 m), that interval of time between the decline of winter and the coming of the summer monsoons when, historically, expeditions to Everest have been most successful, and Hyakutake's stellar trespass was considered an ominous sign by the Sherpas in whose villages the cosmic smear was a matter of concern and conversation.

The Sherpas, an ethnic group indigenous to Tibet, many of whom now live primarily in the highland valleys of Nepal, derive a substantial part of their family incomes from the mountaineering expeditions that come to the Himalaya. Some work as porters, cooks, and yak drivers; others take on the more dangerous and more lucrative roles as high-altitude support personnel, joining foreign expeditions in their ultimate wager: skill and endurance pitted against a physical environment that precludes prolonged human existence.

By 1996, in the seventy-five years that had passed since the first attempt was made on its summit in 1921, more than 140 climbers had died on Mount Everest. Almost 40 percent of those fatalities had been Sherpas. So, when the natural orders were disturbed, the Sherpas took notice.

Kami Noru Sherpa is in his midthirties, married, and the father of three children. He is one of the new generation of Sherpas who have, since the 1950s, exchanged their traditional dress for Gore-Tex parkas and embraced the cash economy of mountaineering. In 1996, as he had been for the past several years, Kami Noru Sherpa was hired by Himalayan Guides, a commercial

Above the Clouds: The Diaries of a High Altitude Mountaineer. Anatoli Boukreev. Collected and edited by Linda Wylie. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001. 290 pages, 26 pages of color photographs. $27.95.

When the American Alpine Club received the first invitation ever from the USSR to climb in the Pamir, in 1974, Anatoli Boukreev was 16 years old—and just beginning his high altitude training in the Tien Shan. He did some first ascents of 5,000 meter peaks even then. What he went on to accomplish would make him a gold medalist many times over if climbing and taking care of others—in and out of the mountains—were an Olympic sport. He managed despite asthma (probably brought on by coal dust), a bout of meningitis, a car accident, a bus accident, and the collapse of the USSR. The latter resulted in the privatization of sports, and thus no more financial support for Russian climbers.

In Above the Clouds the reader learns from a collection of Boukreev’s journals and articles, edited by his companion Linda Wylie, about the life of an athlete/philosopher raised in Kazakhstan. Through several accounts of his signature climbs between 1990 and 1997, we are given great insight and much more depth on the Russian system of training and the team spirit that prevailed there than is found in his Everest book, The Climb.

A lengthy foreword by Galen Rowell, who had been asked to accompany Anatoli on what became his ill-fated Annapurna attempt, provides the reader with good reason to read on, to learn about this man. A sample quote: “Anatoli’s fine mind was far more in tune with its body, which it rightly recognized as part of, rather than separate from the natural world....” Having set the stage with comments like this, Rowell also takes some time to put the Everest events of 1996 in perspective.

Linda Wright’s 30-page introduction tells us of Anatoli’s background—his formative years in the coal town Korkino (which means “the last crust of bread”) and