The real mountaineer's story behind the fatal Everest climbs of Into Thin Air. In May 1996 a number of expeditions attempted to climb Mount Everest on the Southeast Ridge route. Crowded conditions slowed their progress and late in the day 23 men and women, including the expedition leaders, were caught in a ferocious blizzard. Disorientated and out of oxygen, climbers struggled to find their way to safety. Alone and climbing blind, Anatoli Boukreev rescued a number of climbers from certain death. This honest and gripping account includes the transcript of the Mountain Madness debriefing, recorded five days after the tragedy, as well as G. Weston de Walt's response to Jon Krakauer.

Author Biography

Anatoli Boukreev was a Russian Kazakhstani professional mountaineer. An experienced climber of eight-thousander peaks, and was the lead climbing guide in the Mountain Madness team during the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster. He rescued three clients left stranded after the blizzard struck. He tells his account of these dramatic events in The Climb. He died when an avalanche hit Annapurna I on Christmas Day 1997.