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Been reading: The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest. Actually, I stopped in the book store to look for Touching the Void, but they were all out-of-stock (like everywhere else I looked). I'm enjoying this book. It offers an alternate perspective to the same story told by Jon Krakauer in his account of the mountaineering tragedy that killed 8 people in 1996 en route to the world's highest peak (Everest). I read his book: Into Thin Air back in January 2003. The Climb is told by Russian high-altitude super-stud Anatoli Nikoliavich Boukreev (subsequently killed in an avalanche on Annapurna). His account, for me, is similar to viewing the same mountain from a different side/perspective. Even more interesting is that their accounts do not agree. Boukreev is the more accomplished & experienced climber, with a fat high-altitude resume. ••• continued ••• The Russians don't believe in coddling marginal climbers. Americans, he feels, are willing to *carry* their clients to the top, as long as they can pay the hefty US$65,000 fee. Russians don't play that game. They feel prospective climbers need to be screened carefully, so that only truly qualified climbers are accepted. I don't know why I'm so attracted to these high-altitude climbing books. I mean, there's a part of me that feels climbing a sheer face is one the he dumbest things a person could do. Can't seem to stop reading about it. |
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