The Climb

"The Climb" is a true, gripping, and thought-provoking account of the worst disaster in the history of Mount Everest. On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by experienced leaders attempted to climb the highest mountain in the world, but things went terribly wrong. Crowded conditions on the mountain, miscommunications, unexplainable delays, poor leadership, bad decisions, and a blinding storm conspired to kill. Twenty-three men and women, disoriented and out of oxygen, struggled to find their way down the southern side of the mountain. In the dark, battered by snow driven by hurricane-force winds, some of the climbers became hopelessly lost and resigned themselves to death. Anatoli Boukreev, the head climbing guide for the West Seattle-based Mountain Madness expedition, refused to give up hope. Solo, climbing blind in the maw of a storm that continually threatened his life, Boukreev brought climbers back from the edge of certain death. Here for the first time, Anatoli Boukreev speaks in his own voice about what happened on that desperate day on Mount Everest. His dramatic first-person account is woven into the sensitive, probing inquiry conducted by investigative writer and filmmaker G. Weston DeWalt, whose extensive interviews with expedition members and survivors and with professional mountaineers provide a unique and critical perspective on the tragedy. "The Climb" is an odjective account of misadventure and a sobering cautionary tale of hubris in the face of unforgiving nature.