Anatoli Boukreev

Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev (; January 16, 1958 – December 25, 1997) was a Russian-born Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above —without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000 m.

Boukreev had a reputation as an elite mountaineer in international climbing circles for summiting K2 in 1993 and Mount Everest via the North Ridge route in 1995, and for his solo speed ascents of some of the world's highest mountains. He became even more widely known for saving the lives of three climbers during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, although his actions during that event were tinged with controversy. He was the co-author of The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest about the 1996 disaster.

In 1997, Boukreev was killed in an avalanche during a winter ascent of Annapurna in Nepal. Boukreev's companion, Linda Wylie, edited his memoirs and published them in 2002 under the title Above the Clouds: The Diaries of a High-Altitude Mountaineer.

Biography

Boukreev was born in Korkino, a poor, coal-mining town within the Soviet Union's Russian SFSR. He came from the narod, the common people, and his parents were both poor. He began climbing in the Ural Mountains when he was twelve years old. When he was sixteen, he was selected by the Soviet government for high-altitude training in the Tian Shan. After completing high school in 1975, he attended Chelyabinsk University for Pedagogy, where he majored in physics and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1979. At the same time, he also completed a coaching program for cross-country skiing.

After graduation, the 21-year-old dreamed of mountain climbing. Boukreev moved to Alma-Ata, the capital of the neighbouring Kazakh SSR (present-day Kazakhstan) located in the Tian Shan mountain range. He became a member of the National Climbing Team of the Soviet Union and scaled many summits during the 1980s. As a member of the National Climbing Team, he received a salary, prestige, and support for his climbing. In 1989, he climbed Kanchenjunga, his first summit of an peak. In 1991, he made his first summit of Everest.

The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Boukreev without a livelihood and even finding enough to eat became a challenge. He became a citizen of Kazakhstan in 1991 and embarked on a nomadic career as a mountaineering guide in Asia and the United States, sometimes relying on common labor to earn a living. Despite his straitened economic condition, he accumulated an impressive number of mountaineering feats, including speed records for climbing several mountains.

Boukreev worked as the head guide for Scott Fischer's newly-formed company Mountain Madness during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. He survived and, during a blizzard, was instrumental in saving the lives of Charlotte Fox, Tim Madsen, and New York socialite Sandy Hill Pittman.

Climbing accomplishments

thumb|Boukreev in 1991<br><small>Photo by: Jaan Kynnap</small>

Highlights

{| class="wikitable sortable"

! Year !! Date !! Mountain !! Height !! Route/Details !! Notes

| rowspan="1" | 1987 || || Lenin Peak || 7,134 m || || First solo ascent

| rowspan="2" | 1989 || April 15 || Kangchenjunga || 8,586 m || New route || With Second Soviet Himalaya Expedition

|| April 30 - May 2 || Kangchenjunga || || || First traverse of the four 8,000 m summits of the massif

| rowspan="2" | 1990 || April || Denali || 6,193 m || Cassin Ridge route ||

|| May || Denali || 6,193 m || West Rib route || Solo ascent

| rowspan="2" | 1991 || May 10 || Dhaulagiri || 8,176 m || New route on the west wall || With First Kazakhstan Himalaya Expedition

|| October 7 || Mount Everest || 8,848 m || South Col route ||

| rowspan="2" | 1993 || May 14 || Denali || 6,193 m || ||

|| July 30 || K2 || 8,611 m || Abruzzi route ||

| rowspan="2" | 1994 || April 29 || Makalu II || 8,460 m || ||

|| May 15 || Makalu || 8,476 m || || With Neal Beidleman; planned fastest speed ascent abandoned due to destroyed tent at camp III

| rowspan="4" | 1995 || May 17 || Mount Everest || 8,848 m || North Ridge route ||

|| June 30 || Peak Abai || 4,010 m || || Guide for President of Kazakhstan

|| October 8 || Dhaulagiri || 8,176 m || || Fastest ascent record (17h 15m)

|| December 8 || Manaslu || 8,156 m || || With Second Kazakhstan Himalaya Expedition

| rowspan="4" | 1996 || May 10 || Mount Everest || 8,848 m || South Col route || Guide for Mountain Madness

|| May 17 || Lhotse || 8,516 m || || Solo ascent, speed record (21h 16min) from Base Camp without supplemental oxygen

|| September 25 || Cho Oyu || 8,201 m || || With Third Kazakhstan Himalaya Expedition

|| October 9 || Shishapangma (North summit) || 8,008 m || ||

| rowspan="4" | 1997 || April 24 || Mount Everest || 8,848 m || South Col Route || Guide for Indonesian military expedition

|| May 23 || Lhotse || 8,516 m || ||

|| July 7 || Broad Peak || 8,047 m || || Solo ascent

|| July 14 || Gasherbrum II || 8,035 m || || Solo ascent. Advanced Base Camp (5800 metres) to summit in 9hr 30min.

Denali

In May 1990, Boukreev was invited by an American climber to guide several clients to the summit of Denali in Alaska. Denali, previously known as Mount McKinley, has challenges such as hidden crevasses and unpredictably cold weather due to its proximity to the Arctic Circle and the ocean.

The expedition was a success, and the team reached the summit and returned without incident. During the climb, there had been somewhat of a language barrier, and Boukreev felt the sting of needing to borrow equipment due to his economic circumstances. After the team had returned home, Boukreev decided to attempt a solo speed ascent of Denali before returning to the Soviet Union.

Boukreev's solo speed ascent of Denali in 1990 was completed in 10½ hours from the base to the summit. That season acclimatized climbers were normally taking three to four days and five camps to summit — Boukreev's feat was noted by Climbing magazine in a 1990 issue, and commented on by Denali Park rangers who described it as "unreal".

The danger facing Boukreev on K2 was that the summit felt like the finish line. Boukreev would later write that he did not feel the emotions of victory in that moment on top of K2's peak because he was physically and emotionally spent. Boukreev found himself in a dangerous position. He had expended too much energy placing fixed lines along a narrow, steep portion earlier that day. But since the team wanted to push on to the summit that same afternoon, rather than return to their tents to sleep and make a summit bid the next morning, Boukreev acquiesced. Boukreev would later write:

Boukreev later described feeling like a "squeezed lemon".

Everest

Boukreev became widely known as the lead climbing guide for the Mountain Madness expedition headed by Scott Fischer in May 1996. The expedition was one of several attempting to summit Everest on the same day (May 10). Soon after summiting on May 10, a disastrous blizzard struck, stranding many climbers above the South Col overnight, and by May 11, eight climbers from three different expeditions had perished. Boukreev rescued three climbers stranded in the disaster above 7,900 m, and all six of the climbing clients on the Mountain Madness expedition survived the ordeal.thumb|View of [[Mount Everest from Rongbuk Glacier]]

Galen Rowell described Boukreev's rescue efforts in the Wall Street Journal as:

Controversy

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster ignited controversy. Author Jon Krakauer was critical of Boukreev in his book, Into Thin Air. Subsequently, Boukreev was contacted by various media for a response, and also wrote his own account of the events on Everest in The Climb, a book co-written with Gary Weston DeWalt.

The core of the controversy was Boukreev's decision, as was his usual practice, to summit Everest without using supplementary oxygen and to descend to the camp ahead of his clients. He was the first to reach the summit on the day of the disaster and stayed at or near the summit for nearly 1.5 hours helping others with their summit efforts, before descending and arriving at his tent shortly after 5 pm on May 10, well ahead of the later summitters on his team.

According to Boukreev himself the plan to descend ahead of his clients was discussed with and approved by expedition leader Fischer.

Krakauer acknowledged Boukreev's skills as a mountaineer and said that Boukreev, a Russian who spoke English poorly, "came from a tough, proud, hardscrabble climbing culture that did not believe in coddling the weak." Mountaineer Galen Rowell pointed out that Boukreev "fixed the Hillary Step after Sherpas failed to do so, foresaw problems with clients nearing camp after dark in a storm, noted five other guides present on the mountain, and descended to the South Col to be rested and hydrated enough to respond to an emergency" of a blizzard with gale force winds. Unable to find anyone -- guides, clients, or Sherpas -- to accompany him, Boukreev undertook three solo rescue attempts during the night and found and led three climbers stranded and lost on the mountain back to the safety of the camp.

Boukreev's detractors say that had he stayed with the clients, he would have been in better position to assist them down the mountain, though every one of Boukreev's clients survived, including the three (Pittman, Fox, Madsen) that he rescued on May 11. The only client deaths that day were suffered by the Adventure Consultants expedition, led by guide Rob Hall, who lost his own life when he chose to stay and help a client summit the mountain past the safe turnaround time of 14:00. Reinhold Messner criticized Boukreev, saying "no one should guide Everest without using bottled oxygen" while David Breashears pointed out that Boukreev, despite climbing down first, was "sitting in his tent unable to assist anyone" until the clients themselves staggered into the camp with the information vital to their rescue. On the other hand, Messner had previously stated that "I don’t think there’s a big difference between danger and not danger, using or not using oxygen" while working as a guide.

|align=right|width=50%

However, when Fischer was stranded on the mountain and dying of hypoxia and frostbite, his last request was for Boukreev to be sent to his rescue. Boukreev undertook a fourth rescue alone but arrived too late to save Fischer.

Before returning to the U.S. after the events on Everest in 1996, Boukreev climbed the Lhotse, which is in proximity to Everest. He decided on a solo ascent because he hoped that in the process of climbing it he might find some inner clarity to what had just transpired on Everest.

In 1997 Anatoli Boukreev was awarded the David A. Sowles Memorial Award by the American Alpine Club. The award recognizes people "who have distinguished themselves, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperiled in the mountains. It is dedicated to the memory of David A. Sowles." It was presented to him by Jim Wickwire, the first American to summit K2. The award is the American Alpine Club's highest award for valor in recognition of his role in rescuing climbers in the 1996 Everest disaster.

Death

Three weeks after receiving the David A. Sowles Memorial Award, Boukreev began his attempt to climb the south face of Annapurna I () along with Simone Moro, an accomplished Italian mountaineer. They were accompanied by Dimitri Sobolev, a cinematographer from Kazakhstan who was documenting the attempt. On December 25 around noon, Boukreev and Moro were fixing ropes in a couloir at around the level.

Suddenly, an enormous cornice broke loose from the heights of Annapurna's Western Wall and rumbled down the long couloir. The avalanche knocked Moro down the mountain where he landed just above their tent at Camp I . Fortuitously, Moro had somehow stayed near the top of the avalanche debris and managed to dig himself out after a few minutes. Unable to see or hear any signs of Boukreev or Sobolev (whom Moro had witnessed disappearing beneath "car-sized blocks of ice"), Moro descended to Annapurna base camp where he was flown by helicopter back to Kathmandu for surgery on his hands, which had been ripped down to the tendons during the fall.

thumb|Anatoli Boukreev memorial at [[Annapurna base camp]]

News of the accident reached New Mexico on December 26. Linda Wylie, Boukreev's girlfriend, left for Nepal on December 28. Several attempts were made to reach the avalanche site by helicopter but inclement weather in late December prevented search teams from reaching Camp I. On January 3, 1998, searchers were finally able to reach Camp I and an empty tent. Linda Wylie subsequently issued a somber statement from Kathmandu:

<blockquote>This is the end... there are no hopes of finding him alive.</blockquote>

Boukreev had dreamt in detail of dying in an avalanche nine months before his death. The only thing missing was the name of the mountain. When Boukreev's companion tried to convince him to take a different path in life to avoid a fate that Boukreev was convinced of, he responded, "Mountains are my life...my work. It is too late for me to take up another road."

Memorial

At the site of Annapurna base-camp there is a memorial chorten to Boukreev including one of his favorite quotes:<blockquote>"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion."</blockquote>

On January 18, 2023, a sculpture of Boukreev by Nurlan Dalbai was unveiled at the Medeu ice sports rink. The mountaineer is shown at rest with his hand on an ice axe.

Boukreev Summit (3010m) near Almaty, Kazakhstan is named after Boukreev.

In popular culture

Icelandic actor Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson portrays Boukreev in the Baltasar Kormákur film, Everest, about the 1996 Everest disaster.

Polish and American actor Peter J. Lucas portrays Boukreev in the television disaster film, Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, based on the book Into Thin Air about the 1996 Everest disaster by Jon Krakauer.

Bibliography

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev and Gary Weston DeWalt, published by St. Martins Paperbacks, 1997, .
Above the Clouds: The Diaries of a High-Altitude Mountaineer, written by Anatoli Boukreev. Collected and edited by Linda Wylie; published by St. Martin's Griffin, 2002, .

References

External links

Anatoli Boukreev Memorial Fund
Photo of Anatoli Boukreev (left) and Martin Adams with Kazakhstan state flag on Everest 1996