Anatoli Boukreev

Anatoli Boukreev was a Russian climber who took on Kazakhstani citizenship following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A highly trained and experience high-altitude mountain guide, Boukreev's services were in demand by the commercial expeditions preparing to climb Mt. Everest in 1996. He signed on with Mountain Madness, led by Scott Fischer, after Fischer offered him over twice the pay offered by another company.

Considered aloof and arrogant by some of the other climbers, Boukreev was independent and sometimes impatient. He believed strongly in a regimented training and acclimatization process to prepare climbers for high altitude and was concerned when his employer, Fischer, did not adopt Boukreev's complete recommendations.

Boukreev climbed several peaks above 8,000 meters in height in his career, many of them solo and without supplementary oxygen. His capabilities at high altitude allowed him to rescue three Mountain Madness climbers who had become lost while descending from...