The Defense of Boukreev's Actions

"The Climb" is largely a response to the controversy surrounding the tragic climb of Everest in the spring of 1996 in which several climbers died, including two commercial climbing guides. Anatoli Boukreev was a guide for one of the companies leading expeditions and he played a central role by rescuing three of the climbers in his group when they became lost high on the mountain.

One of the other climbers on the mountain at the same time as Boukreev was Jon Krakauer, a writer who was hired by Outside Magazine to join a commercial expedition and write about it for publication. When Krakauer's piece was published, it was highly critical of Boukreev, describing him as arrogant and even negligent in his role as a guide. As outlined in "The Climb," Boukreev wrote an extended response to Krakauer's article and asked Outside Magazine to publish it...