Anatoli Boukreev

Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev (Анато́лий Никола́евич Букре́ев; January 16, 1958 – December 25, 1997) was a Soviet and Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8000 m—without supplemental oxygen.

After completing high school in 1975, he attended Chelyabinsk University for Pedagogy, where he majored in physics and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1979.

At the same time, he also completed a coaching program for cross-country skiing.

After graduation, the 21-year-old dreamed of mountain climbing.

Boukreev moved to Alma-Ata, the capital of the neighbouring Kazakh SSR (present day Kazakhstan) located in the Tian Shan mountain range.

From 1985 he was part of a Kazakhstani mountaineering team, and he became a citizen of Kazakhstan in 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

1987 1989 1990 1991 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8000 m.

Boukreev worked as a commercial mountain guide in the 1990s, and was working with Scott Fischer's adventure company Mountain Madness during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.

He managed to survive and was also instrumental in saving the lives of others, including New York socialite Sandy Hill Pittman.

In May 1990, Boukreev was invited by an American climber to guide several clients to the summit of Denali in Alaska.

Denali, previously known as Mount McKinley, has challenges such as hidden crevasses and unpredictably cold weather due to its proximity to the Arctic Circle and the ocean.

The expedition was a success and the team reached the summit and returned without incident.

During the climb there had been somewhat of a language barrier and Boukreev felt the sting of needing to borrow equipment due to his economic circumstances.

After the team had returned home, Boukreev decided to attempt a solo speed ascent of Denali before returning to the Soviet Union.

Boukreev's solo speed ascent of Denali in 1990 was completed in 10½ hours from the base to the summit.

That season acclimatised climbers were normally taking three to four days and five camps to summit — Boukreev's feat was noted by Climbing magazine in a 1990 issue, and commented on by Denali Park rangers who described it as "unreal".

Boukreev had a reputation as an elite mountaineer in international climbing circles for summiting K2 in 1993 and Mount Everest via the North Ridge route in 1995, and for his solo speed ascents of some of the world's highest mountains.

In 1993, Boukreev reached the summit of K2 via the Abruzzi Spur, where he shared the peak with team members Peter Metzger of Germany and Andrew Lock of Australia.

The other team members were German climbers Reinmar Joswig (the team leader) and Ernst Eberhardt.

With a peak elevation of 8,611 metres (28,251 ft), K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth after Mount Everest.

As part of the Karakoram range, K2 is located on the border between Pakistan and China.

K2 is referred to as the "Savage Mountain" — notable for its steep pyramidal relief, dropping quickly in almost all directions, and the inherent danger in climbing it.

The danger facing Boukreev on K2 was that the summit felt like the finish line.

Boukreev would later write that he did not feel the emotions of victory in that moment on top of K2's peak because he was physically and emotionally spent.

Boukreev found himself in a dangerous position.

He had expended too much energy placing fixed lines along a narrow, steep portion earlier that day.

But since the team wanted to push on to the summit that same afternoon, rather than return to their tents to sleep and make a summit bid the next morning, Boukreev acquiesced.

Boukreev would later write:

"During my years of training as a ski racer, and then as a mountaineer, I had learned how to wring out the last of my energy for a finish. But this is dangerous in mountaineering, because the summit is not the finish of your competition with a great mountain. To survive you must be able to get down from the forbidden zone."

Boukreev later described feeling like a "squeezed lemon".

When Boukreev and the other two climbers began their descent just after sundown they met Reinmar Joswig ascending and near the peak.

Relying heavily on intuition and his previous mountaineering experiences, Boukreev slowly made his way down the steep rock and ice of the mountain.

A crampon kept coming off of his boot, and at one point he had to use his ice axe to arrest a fall, keeping himself from sliding into the abyss.

Eventually he made his way to the tents at the highest elevation camp.

He became even more widely known for saving the lives of climbers during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.

In 1997, Boukreev was killed in an avalanche during a winter ascent of Annapurna in Nepal.

Boukreev's companion, Linda Wylie, edited his memoirs and published them in 2002 under the title, Above the Clouds: The Diaries of a High-Altitude Mountaineer.

Boukreev was born in Korkino, within the Soviet Union's Russian SFSR.

He came from the narod, the common people, and his parents were both poor.