- 2 days ago
2 million people read the same book and decided to hate one man.
His name was Anatoli Boukreev. And that book said he was a coward who abandoned his clients on the deadliest night Everest had ever seen. There's just one problem.
Welcome to the extreme edge.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Watch More:
Rob Hall's Fatal 60 Seconds: Why He Broke His Only Everest Rule
https://youtu.be/Qx3fwTdjfx8?si=qqep1MPfBAh_JEfC
Why 1 In 3 Climbers Die On Annapurna 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siPIsDWMqYs
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His name was Anatoli Boukreev. And that book said he was a coward who abandoned his clients on the deadliest night Everest had ever seen. There's just one problem.
Welcome to the extreme edge.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Watch More:
Rob Hall's Fatal 60 Seconds: Why He Broke His Only Everest Rule
https://youtu.be/Qx3fwTdjfx8?si=qqep1MPfBAh_JEfC
Why 1 In 3 Climbers Die On Annapurna 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siPIsDWMqYs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
More eXtreme Stories - Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheExtreme-Edge
Every month there's a story that never goes on YouTube. You'll find it here: patreon.com/c/TheeXtreme
For business inquiries only - extremeedgeinfo@gmail.com
Voiceover: https://jessegvoiceactor.com/
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Two million people read the same book and decided to hate one man.
00:05His name was Anatoly Bucreve, the most elite high-altitude climber alive,
00:11and that book said he was a coward who abandoned his clients on the deadliest night Everest had ever seen.
00:19That book sold two million copies, won major awards, and was written by a man who was there.
00:26There's just one problem. Welcome to the Extreme Edge.
00:36At around 1.07 in the afternoon on May 10th, 1996,
00:41this 38-year-old Kazakh climber named Anatoly Bucreve stepped onto the highest point on Earth,
00:48planted his ice axe in the snow, and for a moment, just stood there staring in horror at what he
00:55was seeing.
00:56And it wasn't because he was at the top of Everest, on this narrow ridge of ice and rock where
01:00he could see gigantic mountains poking out of clouds like toothpicks.
01:05It was because far below him, strung out along the ridge leading to the summit, he could see dozens of
01:11climbers still climbing.
01:13Dozens, when it was already past 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
01:17Anatoly was an unconventional climber himself, but even he knew that the one rule on Everest you should never break
01:24is that if you weren't standing on top of the summit by around 2 p.m., you should go back
01:30down.
01:30And the reason isn't that there's some ticketmaster up there that closes up shop past 2.
01:36It's just common sense.
01:38The sun sets in the Himalayas at around 6 p.m., and it gets dark very quickly once it does.
01:44If you summit later than that time, there's a high chance of not making it safely back to camp before
01:50sunset.
01:51And as you can imagine, being trapped in the dark on the highest mountain in the world is not really
01:58an outcome anyone particularly wants.
02:00But the climbers Anatoly was watching below were literally nowhere close to the summit at past 1 p.m.
02:08At this rate, they would be lucky to be up here by 4 p.m.
02:13So why were they still climbing?
02:15What on earth were they thinking?
02:18Well, they didn't pay him to worry about that.
02:21Anatoly had been hired as a climbing guy by Scott Fisher of Mountain Madness,
02:25one of the men basically organizing this whole expedition.
02:29His job was to help climbers from that expedition safely reach the top.
02:34And so for the next 90 minutes, that's exactly what he did.
02:38He would go down, see one or two climbers seriously struggling to get themselves up,
02:44clip in alongside them, and basically pull them the rest of the way to the summit itself.
02:49He also helped them take photographs of themselves up there because
02:53who wouldn't want their pictures taken on top of the world?
02:56This was all pretty standard guide work by Anatoly, but at 2.30 p.m., May 10th, 1996,
03:04he decided to do what would later be considered one of the most reckless things a climbing guide can do
03:09in the history of Everest.
03:11He turned around from the summit and started going back down.
03:15This made absolutely no sense.
03:18Every major Western commercial expedition here on Everest climbed with the simple philosophy
03:24that mountain guides stay with their clients the whole way up and the whole way back down.
03:30I mean, the entire reason people pay a fortune to get up there is to have somebody experienced stay glued
03:36to their side,
03:37and guides know this, but Anatoly simply didn't want to wait around.
03:43Without telling anyone, he started climbing down this incredibly narrow ridge of ice and rock that was Everest's summit.
03:50The path in some sections on this ridge is barely wider than your own two feet.
03:56If you slip and fall to your left or right, well, you drop thousands of feet.
04:02There's a single thin rope secured to the ice that runs right down the middle of this ridge.
04:08Climbers clip their harnesses on while climbing to protect themselves from falling,
04:12and normally, this single rope operates like a one-way street because everyone moves up in a slow, agonizing herd,
04:20and then hours later, the herd moves down.
04:24But Anatoly that day was moving against the flow,
04:28like a rogue driver speeding the wrong way through a traffic jam of dying people.
04:33So, every time Anatoly met a client climbing up while on the way down,
04:38he had to completely detach from the safety rope, maneuver around the client, and clip back in.
04:45Doing this over and over cost a massive amount of physical effort,
04:49the effort he could have, quite frankly, used to actually help his team reach the top.
04:54Now, I don't know about you, but I would be absolutely furious if I were the climber he was passing.
05:01I am suffocating here, carrying this awkward, heavy metal oxygen cylinder on my back
05:07while fighting for every single inch of ice,
05:10only to look up and see this man, supposed to cheer me through this exact final stretch,
05:16practically gliding down the mountain like Fred Astaire walking down a staircase.
05:20Man, I'd feel like the guy I just paid a fortune to protect me had just left me for dead.
05:26But Anatoly didn't seem to care about the optics,
05:30and because he was alone and not helping anyone, he moved incredibly fast.
05:34He was so fast that by 5pm on May 10th, he was safely back down at Camp 4.
05:41Camp 4 on Everest, by the way, isn't even really a camp the way you or I might picture one.
05:47It is basically just a flat, barren spot, right, between two mountain peaks.
05:51But it had tents. At 26,000 feet, that's enough.
05:57The moment Anatoly arrived at Camp 4, he unzipped his tent, crawled inside to finally get out of the biting
06:03wind,
06:04and immediately got to relaxing.
06:06He fired up his small camping stove and began melting chunks of snow to make hot tea.
06:12It looked, to anyone watching, that he thought his job was done.
06:16All he had to do now was sit back, stay warm, and wait for the rest of the expedition
06:21to somehow figure their way down the mountain and stumble into camp.
06:26But as Anatoly sat there in the relative quiet of his tent,
06:30listening to the hum of his little stove, the sky outside began to change.
06:36When he looked outside a few minutes past 5.30,
06:38the wind started to violently batter the nylon walls.
06:43Snow flurries were falling faster and faster,
06:46and the sky was rapidly turning a bruised, unnatural gray.
06:51The blood must have completely drained from his face.
06:54He knew exactly what it meant.
06:57The worst outcome that could happen to the climbers he had abandoned up there,
07:02right at this moment, was already happening.
07:05It's easy to look at that moment and think the mountain was punishing him for going down early.
07:10But the truth is, this storm was just the trigger for a much darker controversy.
07:15One that would permanently stain this entire climbing season.
07:20To understand what led to all of this, we have to jump back a few months.
07:25By the spring of 1996, climbing Everest had changed.
07:29It had become a highly commercialized operation.
07:32Anyone with $65,000 could essentially buy their way onto the mountain.
07:38That meant the clients that season weren't all seasoned mountaineers.
07:42They were wealthy professionals, socialites, doctors, and journalists.
07:47And they expected premium, handheld treatment.
07:50They expected nothing to go wrong.
07:52But 1996 was a season where everything went haywire.
07:56Relentless storms had battered the peak for weeks.
07:59So, when a rare, narrow window of clear weather opened up on May 10th,
08:05almost every guiding company pushed for the summit on the exact same day.
08:10It created a massive, slow-moving traffic jam on the deadliest part of the mountain.
08:16By the time these exhausted climbers finally reached the top,
08:20they had blown way past the strict 2pm turnaround time,
08:24and their oxygen was running dangerously low.
08:27But in their minds, they were safe.
08:30The next major storm wasn't supposed to hit until tomorrow.
08:34Well, Everest didn't get that memo.
08:38By 6pm, the skies turned pitch black.
08:41A surprise blizzard slammed into dozens of unprotected climbers still making their way down.
08:47Hurricane-force winds ripped across the ridge at over 70 miles per hour,
08:54dropping the wind chill to a flesh-freezing 100 degrees below zero.
08:59But the cold wasn't even the biggest threat.
09:02It was the snow.
09:03Solid ice crystals were being blasted horizontally at ungodly speeds.
09:08Just imagine sticking your head out of a moving car window on the highway
09:12while someone throws sand directly into your eyes.
09:16The climbers had to turn their faces away from the wind just to breathe.
09:20And when you do that in a total whiteout, you lose all sense of direction.
09:25Left, right, forward, backward.
09:29It all just becomes a blinding white wall.
09:31And before climbers on the mountain could even brace themselves,
09:36a blizzard slammed into dozens of unprotected climbers
09:39still coming down the upper slopes of the mountain.
09:4370 miles an hour.
09:44That's as fast as a car speeding down the highway,
09:48slamming down their tired bodies.
09:51The wind chill dropped to about 100 degrees below zero,
09:55cold enough to give any exposed skin frostbite in under a minute.
09:59But the biggest issue wasn't even the cold.
10:02But the snow, this windy storm, was flinging around.
10:06Solid ice crystals were being blasted horizontally at ungodly speeds
10:11right at their faces.
10:13Climbers facing that storm simply couldn't keep their eyes open.
10:16They just couldn't.
10:18Imagine sticking your head out of that moving car window on the highway
10:22while someone throws sand directly into your eyes.
10:25They had to turn their face away from the wind
10:28just to be able to breathe and protect their eyes.
10:31The only problem is,
10:33they no longer had any idea what was left, right, forward, or backward
10:38because, well, everything looks just white all around.
10:43It's the worst condition any climber can find themselves in.
10:47On May 10th, 1996,
10:49a group of guides and several clients from Anatoli's expedition
10:53found themselves in exactly that nightmare.
10:56They were slowly making their way down the ridge
10:59when the storm hit them,
11:01completely unprepared.
11:03It's ironic because they were literally just a couple of hundred feet away
11:07from the safety of Camp 4,
11:08but in that snow-white blindness,
11:11it might as well have been on another mountain.
11:13For hours in the blinding snow,
11:16all they did was wander blindly in the darkness,
11:19hoping to somehow bump into the tents at Camp 4,
11:22even though they couldn't see two feet in front of their own faces.
11:27But eventually,
11:28the group was forced to come to a dead stop
11:31because,
11:32peering through the blowing ice,
11:34they realized they had wandered right up to the very edge of the Kangshung face.
11:38That's thousands of feet away from where they began at first,
11:43and right at the literal edge of the mountain.
11:46One more step in the wrong direction,
11:48and they would have fallen right off the mountain.
11:51They were completely trapped.
11:54They couldn't go forward,
11:55they had no idea which direction was backward,
11:58and remember,
11:59the winds were still blowing furiously.
12:01So,
12:03they did the only thing they could do.
12:05They collapsed onto the ice and formed a huddle.
12:08They literally piled on top of each other,
12:10desperately trying to share whatever little body heat they had left.
12:15It is honestly the most miserable,
12:17terrifying situation a human being can endure.
12:22Especially after paying tens of thousands of dollars
12:25to ensure an expert guide was there to prevent
12:28exactly this from happening.
12:30As the hours ticked by in the dark,
12:33with their oxygen completely empty
12:35and their bodies actively shutting down from the cold,
12:38it began to dawn on some of them that this might be it.
12:42They were not going to find their way back.
12:45And right out of that storm,
12:48stepping through the blowing snow like Arnold
12:50stepping out of the wreckage in Terminator 2,
12:53was Anatoly.
12:54He physically dragged three clients right from that tangled mass
12:58back nearly 1,000 feet
13:01all the way to Camp 4.
13:03And he did this three separate times.
13:06Three!
13:07In a hurricane,
13:08all alone,
13:09without oxygen,
13:10by the way.
13:11By the time the sun finally came up the next morning,
13:14Anatoly had single-handedly saved the lives of three people.
13:18It remains to this day
13:20one of the greatest individual rescue efforts in climbing history.
13:25But eight people died because of that single storm.
13:30And when the survivors finally staggered back down to civilization,
13:34half frozen,
13:36some of them missing fingers,
13:38missing noses,
13:39one of them even losing an entire hand,
13:41the world wanted to know one thing.
13:44Whose fault was it?
13:46And this man thought he had the answer.
13:49His name was John Krakauer,
13:51and honestly,
13:52he seemed like the perfect guy to answer that question.
13:56One,
13:57John was a highly respected journalist for Outside Magazine.
14:00The man was literally trained on how to investigate
14:03and break down highly complicated disasters.
14:06Second,
14:08John had actually been on Everest
14:10during this exact storm as a paying client,
14:13so he lived through the nightmare firsthand.
14:16He saw people die.
14:18He nearly passed away himself.
14:20And when he went home to write the story,
14:23John pointed fingers at specific decisions
14:25and at specific people who,
14:28he felt,
14:29failed to do their jobs that day.
14:30And one of the people he blamed was,
14:33you guessed it,
14:34Anatoly.
14:35John said exactly what anyone looking at this story would be thinking.
14:39Yeah,
14:40sure,
14:40Anatoly saved three people at great risk to his own personal life.
14:44That cannot be denied.
14:46But why were they trapped in a huddle in the first place?
14:50Wasn't it partly because their guide,
14:52the very person who should have guided them home,
14:55had instead abandoned them on the ridge just because it was late?
14:59And it didn't just stop there.
15:01For this climb,
15:02Anatoly chose to climb up without bottled oxygen.
15:06It was his fourth ascent up there without oxygen.
15:09That's an insane achievement for a normal climber.
15:12But Anatoly had a greater responsibility in this expedition
15:16beyond his own personal accomplishments.
15:19His tasks required extra strength up there.
15:22Extra strength that only bottled oxygen gives climbers at those altitudes.
15:27And look,
15:28when you're paid $25,000 to keep people alive,
15:32choosing to climb without extra oxygen
15:34when it would have certainly allowed him to think more clearly
15:37and assist more clients,
15:39was just,
15:40in John's opinion,
15:41an arrogant,
15:42cowardly mistake.
15:44It's amazing just how quickly this argument spread.
15:47John's article was so popular,
15:49so passionate,
15:50that he quickly expanded his experience into a book
15:54that came out the following year.
15:55It was called
15:56Into Thin Air,
15:58and it's still one of the most popular adventure books ever written.
16:02Millions of copies were sold,
16:04it was translated into dozens of languages,
16:07it even almost won a Pulitzer,
16:09and,
16:10I have to be honest,
16:11I see the reason why.
16:13I mean,
16:13the writing is just exceptional.
16:16And while John might not have meant it that way,
16:18Anatoly Bukriye became,
16:21in that book,
16:22this brilliant but selfish,
16:24cowardly guide who failed his clients,
16:26and was only forced to play the hero
16:29to clean up his own mess.
16:31But,
16:32buried under the bestseller and the nominations,
16:35under years of classrooms and book clubs,
16:38treating John Krakauer's version as gospel,
16:41there's a timeline,
16:42an actual minute-by-minute record
16:45of what Anatoly Bukriye did that night.
16:48And once you lay it out next to the accusation,
16:51something strange happens.
16:53The coward disappears.
16:54And what's left behind looks a lot more like
16:57the only man on that mountain
16:59who did exactly what he said he would.
17:02So let's go back,
17:03not to the book,
17:04but to the mountain itself.
17:06And to the hours before anyone even knew
17:08a storm was coming.
17:10So,
17:10it's 2.30pm,
17:12you are standing on the razor-thin ridge
17:14at 29,000 feet,
17:15watching this massive,
17:17terrifying traffic jam
17:19of exhausted climbers.
17:20You simply have to keep moving
17:23to generate heat.
17:24Without extra oxygen,
17:26your only defense
17:27against the paralyzing cold is speed.
17:29You come from a long line
17:31of Soviet climbers
17:32who didn't view mountain guides as helpers.
17:34You were taught
17:35that every climber
17:36must be self-reliant,
17:38and a guide's actual job
17:40is to be the vanguard
17:41who breaks the trail,
17:43fixes the ropes,
17:44and acts as the ultimate safety net
17:46when things go completely wrong.
17:48By 1991,
17:50that whole system
17:51with the state funding
17:52and the salary
17:53that let you climb
17:54instead of work
17:55had collapsed,
17:56along with the country
17:58that built it.
17:59But you kept climbing anyway,
18:01because by then,
18:02it wasn't a career,
18:03it was the only thing
18:04you actually wanted to do
18:05with your life.
18:06There were months
18:07when you couldn't afford food,
18:09you borrowed other men's gear
18:11because you couldn't buy your own,
18:12and still,
18:1410 different times,
18:15you stood on top
18:16of one of the 14 highest mountains
18:18on Earth
18:18without a single breath
18:20of bottled oxygen.
18:22So,
18:23when you signed on
18:23to guide for Scott Fisher
18:25this season,
18:26you didn't pretend
18:27to be something you weren't,
18:28you told him straight,
18:29you climb pure,
18:30or you don't climb at all.
18:32And Scott,
18:33a man who understood
18:34exactly what kind of climber
18:36he was hiring,
18:37agreed that if the group
18:38started falling behind,
18:40if things got tight up high,
18:42you'd get down fast,
18:43grab oxygen and supplies,
18:45and be ready to come back up
18:47if anyone needed pulling out.
18:49So,
18:49at 2.30pm,
18:51with that traffic jam
18:52still crawling toward a summit
18:53you knew some of them
18:54would never reach,
18:56you make the call.
18:57You turn,
18:58and you start moving down,
18:59alone,
19:00fast,
19:01exactly the way
19:02you told Scott you would.
19:04You are Anatoly Bukriyev,
19:06and you have no idea
19:07just how wildly controversial
19:09that decision
19:10is about to turn out to be.
19:12All you know
19:13is that by 5.30pm,
19:15the sky outside your tent
19:16has turned a color
19:17it has no business
19:19turning this early,
19:20and something in your gut
19:21says the tea can wait.
19:23You're moving out
19:24before the wind
19:25even finishes building.
19:27Out of the tent,
19:28oxygen already slung
19:30over your shoulder
19:31for whoever needs it first.
19:32You don't make it 30 feet
19:34before the whiteout
19:35swallows everything.
19:36No hands in front of your face,
19:38no rope,
19:39no ridge,
19:40no horizon to steer by.
19:42Going further right now
19:43isn't brave,
19:44it's just a fast way
19:45to become one more person
19:47this mountain kills.
19:48So,
19:49you fight your way
19:50back through the wind,
19:51trying to peel the jacket
19:52off your body,
19:53and get back inside the tent.
19:56Then,
19:56you wait for hours
19:57in agony,
19:58knowing people up there
19:59are trapped,
20:00but there's nothing
20:01you can do to save them.
20:03For a man like you,
20:04that might be the hardest part
20:06of the whole night.
20:077 p.m. comes and passes,
20:09so does 8 p.m.
20:11Then,
20:11just past 9,
20:13shapes stagger
20:14out of the storm,
20:15half frozen,
20:17barely upright,
20:18but talking.
20:19And they tell you,
20:20in panic,
20:21that the rest of the group
20:22is still out there,
20:23pinned near a cliff edge,
20:25running out of everything.
20:27You go to tent,
20:28looking for anyone else
20:29willing to walk back
20:30into that hurricane.
20:31Nobody is.
20:32So,
20:33you grab more oxygen,
20:34and you go alone.
20:36This time,
20:37with something close
20:37to a direction,
20:39trusting your memory
20:40of the ground you crossed
20:41hours earlier in daylight.
20:43You find them.
20:45You get three of them out,
20:46one at a time,
20:47through a storm
20:48that never once lets up.
20:50By the time the sky
20:51starts to gray
20:52with morning,
20:53you've given everything
20:54you had
20:55three separate times over.
20:57You should stop there.
20:59Everyone would understand
21:00if you stopped there.
21:01But you don't.
21:02Because somewhere above you,
21:04still on that mountain,
21:05is Scott,
21:06the man who hired you.
21:08Word reaches camp
21:09that he never made it
21:11off the ridge,
21:11that he's still up
21:13near the south summit,
21:14and nobody's gotten to him.
21:15So,
21:16the next morning,
21:17on legs that already carried
21:18three strangers
21:19down a mountain
21:20the night before,
21:21you go back up.
21:22You find him roughly
21:24where the reports
21:25said he'd be,
21:26and the moment you see him,
21:27you already know.
21:28His hands are gone
21:30to frostbite.
21:31His fingers curled stiff
21:33around nothing.
21:35His face is turned
21:36slightly toward the sky,
21:38eyes half open,
21:39already dusted with snow
21:41that never stopped falling.
21:43You crouch down
21:44next to him anyway.
21:45You call his name,
21:46even though some part of you
21:48already knows
21:48there won't be an answer.
21:50Fifteen years of climbing
21:52has taught you
21:52what a dead body
21:53looks like
21:54on this slope.
21:55Scott Fisher,
21:57the man who gave you
21:58a chance to earn a living
22:00while doing your favorite
22:01thing in the world,
22:02is gone.
22:03And you can't even
22:05bring him home
22:05because you don't have
22:07the strength
22:07to drag him down
22:09alone.
22:10By the time the day ends,
22:12you've climbed Everest
22:13without oxygen,
22:14pulled three strangers
22:15out of a hurricane,
22:17and said goodbye
22:18to the man who hired you
22:19without ever saying
22:21a word.
22:22And still,
22:23despite all this,
22:24you wake up
22:25one Monday morning
22:26to an article
22:27written by a man
22:28who was asleep
22:28in his tent
22:29while you were still
22:30out in that storm,
22:31saying you abandoned
22:33your climbers,
22:34essentially calling you
22:35a coward.
22:36Personally,
22:37I'd have lost my mind.
22:40I'd have wanted to scream
22:41and name every single hour
22:43I spent out in that storm
22:44while he was asleep
22:45to make sure
22:46the whole world
22:47knew exactly
22:48where he was
22:49while I was still moving.
22:52But Anatoly didn't do that.
22:54He didn't start
22:55a screaming match
22:56in the press.
22:57He just tried
22:58to set the record straight.
23:00First,
23:00he wrote a letter
23:01back to John's
23:02highly popular article
23:04to explain
23:05his side of the story.
23:06He laid out
23:07the timeline
23:08and his tactical reason
23:09for going down
23:10early that day.
23:11He practically begged
23:13the world
23:13to just look
23:14at the raw facts
23:15of who actually
23:16survived that night
23:17and exactly
23:18why they survived.
23:20He even ended
23:21this letter
23:22with a line
23:22that almost nobody expected.
23:24I extend my hand
23:26to him
23:26and encourage
23:27that effort.
23:29Some would call
23:30that noble,
23:31but the world
23:32had already chosen him
23:33as the villain.
23:35Quick detour.
23:36Every month,
23:37there's a story
23:38that never goes
23:38to YouTube.
23:39It's there if you want it.
23:41Patreon,
23:42link below.
23:43Now,
23:43where were we?
23:45John Krakauer
23:46was a masterful,
23:47lyrical writer
23:48with a massive
23:49Western publishing machine
23:51behind him.
23:52Anatoly was a stoic,
23:54blunt,
23:55Kazakh climber
23:56whose first language
23:58wasn't even English.
24:00You know,
24:00one of the strangest things
24:02about this whole incident
24:03is just how much
24:04both John and Anatoly
24:06actually agree on
24:07even if they didn't know it.
24:09They both agreed
24:10the ropes
24:10should have been fixed
24:11earlier in the day.
24:13They both agreed
24:14there were simply
24:14too many inexperienced
24:16climbers on that mountain
24:17at once.
24:18They even both agreed
24:20that the commercial
24:20Everest industry
24:22had gotten ahead
24:23of itself
24:23and was selling
24:24expensive dreams
24:26to people who,
24:27frankly,
24:27had no business
24:28being up there
24:29in the first place.
24:31But that's where it ended.
24:32Lives were lost.
24:34Both parties
24:35were convinced
24:35their opponents
24:36were wrong.
24:37It was bound to turn
24:39into a deeply personal,
24:41incredibly messy spat.
24:43And that's exactly
24:45what happened.
24:46Later,
24:47in 1997,
24:49Anatoly teamed up
24:50with a writer
24:50named Weston DeWalt
24:52and published
24:53his own book,
24:54The Climb,
24:55specifically to dismantle
24:57John's claims
24:57point by point.
24:59From there,
25:01John and Anatoly
25:02started publicly
25:02trading bitter,
25:04highly technical letters
25:05to the editor
25:06and outside magazine.
25:08It got so intense
25:09that John actually
25:10went back
25:11and updated
25:12the postscripts
25:13and later editions
25:13of Into Thin Air
25:15just to argue
25:16against Anatoly's book.
25:19Anatoly's camp
25:20fired right back,
25:21calling John
25:22an amateur client
25:23trying to play
25:24armchair coach
25:25on a situation
25:26he didn't have
25:27the expertise
25:28or competence
25:29to understand.
25:31The disagreement
25:32split the climbing world
25:33in two.
25:34You had millions
25:35of casual readers
25:36treating John's book
25:37as gospel,
25:38but you also had
25:40elite climbers
25:40who understood
25:41why Anatoly
25:43made those decisions
25:44that day.
25:45They needed a tiebreaker,
25:47someone who knew
25:47both climbing
25:48and the media
25:49intimately.
25:51That someone
25:51was Galen Rowell.
25:54If you don't know
25:55the name,
25:55you should.
25:56Galen was one of
25:57the most respected
25:58climbers and photographers
26:00alive.
26:00He had spent 30 years
26:02documenting exactly
26:03this kind of decision
26:05at exactly this kind
26:06of altitude
26:07under pressure.
26:08When Galen Rowell
26:09said something
26:10about a mountain,
26:11the people who
26:12actually climbed
26:13mountains listened.
26:14In May of 1997,
26:17about a month
26:18after Into Thin Air
26:19hit shelves,
26:20Rowell sat down
26:21and wrote a piece
26:22for the Wall Street Journal.
26:24He didn't hedge,
26:25he went after
26:26John's version directly,
26:28and he did it
26:28with the one weapon
26:29that's almost impossible
26:31to argue with.
26:32The timeline
26:33of the whole accident.
26:35While Anatoly
26:36was out there alone,
26:37John was asleep
26:38in his tent.
26:39That's not an insult,
26:40John himself
26:41had nearly died
26:42that day.
26:43Nobody blames a man
26:44for resting after that.
26:45But it's hard
26:47to square
26:47reckless guide
26:48who didn't care
26:49with a timeline
26:50that has him
26:51unconscious
26:51while the man
26:52he's accusing
26:53is still out there
26:55working.
26:56Galen went further
26:57than that too.
26:58He argued Anatoly
26:59hadn't just gotten
27:00lucky,
27:01but that he read
27:02the entire situation
27:03better than anyone else
27:04on that mountain
27:05hours before it mattered.
27:07He'd clocked
27:08that there were still
27:08five other guides
27:09up there
27:10capable of handling
27:11the descent.
27:12He'd made sure
27:13he came down
27:13rested,
27:14fed,
27:15and ready to move,
27:16specifically in case
27:18something went wrong.
27:19His exact words were,
27:21Anatoly's heroism
27:23was not a fluke.
27:25And then,
27:26people Anatoly
27:27actually pulled
27:28out of that storm
27:29stopped staying quiet
27:30too.
27:31Sandy Hill Pittman,
27:33one of the three
27:34clients Bukrive
27:35pulled out of that storm
27:36with his own hands,
27:37gave an interview
27:38where she described
27:40the two people
27:40who saved her life
27:41that night,
27:42and Anatoly
27:43was one of them.
27:44To her,
27:45he was the kind
27:46of person
27:47that superheroes
27:48in movies
27:48only pretend to be.
27:50Because,
27:51if he had done
27:52one single thing
27:53differently that night,
27:54taken one different step,
27:56she genuinely believed
27:58she would not be alive
27:59to tell the story
28:00at all.
28:01Charlotte Fox,
28:03another one of the climbers
28:04Bukrive carried out
28:05of that whiteout,
28:06put it even simpler.
28:08Anatoly saved my life.
28:10By December of 1997,
28:13the mountaineering world
28:14had seen enough evidence.
28:16The American Alpine Club,
28:18the single most respected
28:20mountaineering institution
28:21in the United States,
28:22awarded Anatoly Bukrive
28:25the David A. Soule's
28:26Memorial Award.
28:28It's the highest honor
28:29for valor
28:30that the club gives out.
28:31It exists specifically
28:33for climbers
28:34who risk everything
28:35at personal cost
28:36to save someone else's life
28:38on a mountain.
28:39In the 16 years
28:41the award had existed,
28:42it had only been given out
28:43a handful of times.
28:45The man the world
28:47had stereotyped
28:48as reckless
28:49and selfish
28:50was standing in front
28:51of the American Alpine Club
28:53receiving its highest honor
28:55for exactly the actions
28:57that the book
28:58had condemned him for.
28:59He had won.
29:02As publicly
29:03and as completely
29:04as a man in his position
29:05could win,
29:06there was just
29:07one problem.
29:09Three weeks
29:10after the American Alpine Club
29:12handed him
29:13its highest award,
29:15Anatoly was already back
29:16on a mountain in Nepal
29:17known as Annapurna.
29:19It's not the tallest place
29:20on Earth,
29:21but it's even more dangerous
29:23in its own way.
29:25Anatoly was attempting
29:26something that,
29:27quite frankly,
29:28sounds nearly impossible,
29:30a winter ascent
29:31on its south face.
29:33He,
29:34alongside Italian climber
29:35Simone Morrow,
29:37and a Kazakh cameraman
29:38named Dmitri Sobolev,
29:40was determined
29:41to take on this mountain.
29:43Nine months earlier,
29:44Anatoly had a dream.
29:46He was in an avalanche.
29:47He didn't know
29:48which mountain it was on.
29:50When people close to him
29:51heard about it
29:52and told him to be careful
29:53to maybe change his plans,
29:55he told them,
29:56it is too late for me
29:57to take up another road.
30:00It sounds defiant,
30:01but maybe he should have listened
30:03because around 12 p.m.,
30:06December 25th, 1997,
30:09the three men
30:10were fixing ropes
30:11in a narrow couloir,
30:12roughly 19,000 feet
30:14up the mountain
30:15when a massive slab
30:17of snow broke away
30:18without warning
30:19from Onapurna's western wall
30:21and straight above them.
30:23The avalanche swept them
30:25off the mountain.
30:27Simone Morrow managed
30:29to dig himself out,
30:31even though his hands
30:32were torn open
30:33to the tendons.
30:34He survived.
30:36Anatoly and Dmitri
30:37were sadly
30:38not so lucky.
30:40The avalanche had buried them
30:42under thousands of tons
30:43of frozen,
30:44shifting debris.
30:46In the chaos of the slide,
30:48they were gone
30:49in a heartbeat.
30:50And just like that,
30:52the hero of the most harrowing night
30:54in Everest's history,
30:55everyone had called a coward,
30:57was gone.
30:59Anatoly's tragedy
31:00was immediate
31:01because he never saw it coming.
31:03But what happens
31:05when you do see it coming?
31:06when your only rule
31:08warns you
31:09never to dare this mountain
31:11because you know
31:12the consequences,
31:14but you do it anyway.
31:16Check out the next video
31:17to see what happens.
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