`The climb` is atrue, gripping, and though- provoking account of the worst
disaster in the history of Everest in 1996. The real mountaineer`s story
behind the fatal Everest climbs of Into Thin Air.
The Climb is Russian mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev`s account of the harrowing
May 1996 Mount Everest attempt, a tragedy that resulted in the deaths of eight
people. The book is also Boukreev`s rebuttal to accusations from fellow
climber and author Jon Krakauer, who, in his bestselling memoir, Into Thin
Air, suggests that Boukreev forfeited the safety of his clients to achieve his
own climbing goals.
In May 1996 three expeditions attempted to climb Mount Everest on the
Southeast Ridge route. Each group contained world-class climbers and relative
novices, some of whom had paid tens of thousands of pounds for the climb. As
they neared the summit, twenty-three men and women, including expedition
leaders Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, were caught in a ferocious blizzard.
Disorientated, out of oxygen and depleted of supplies, they struggled to find
their way to safety.
Experienced high-altitude guide Anatoli Boukreev led his exhausted and
terrified group of six back to shelter before going back out alone into the
blizzard to help others stranded on the mountain. Rescuing a number of
climbers from certain death, he emerged a hero.
The Climb is his honest and gripping account of true endurance and contains
interviews with some of the surviving climbers, medical personnel and Sherpas.
This edition also includes the transcript of the Mountain Madness debriefing
as well as G. Weston DeWalt?s history and analysis of the Boukreev/Krakauer
debate.