Anatoli Boukreev Quotations

I offer my expertise and experience for hire in order to help a group of people reach the summit.

I am not sure the others are as committed as Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. I think there is more business now, and I know it will be impossible to stop this Everest business.

A review of summit day photographs will show that I was clothed in the latest, highest quality, high altitude gear, comparable, if not better, than that worn by the other members of our expedition.

I told them, you can succeed - it's not likely the first time, maybe 25 per cent, but you CAN succeed. You can also die. By April 16 they had already been to camp III, well ahead of most teams.

I travel to Jakarta, I see what an important country it is. I've been working with them for a year.

Concerned that others were not coming onto the summit and because I had no radio link to those below me, I began to wonder if there were difficulties down the mountain. I made the decision to descend.

I want this book to be facts, to be important, to be history.

People respected my experience, they hire me, they pay me what I am worth to coach their team.

I explained I wanted to descend as quickly as possible to camp IV in order to warm myself and gather a supply of hot drink and oxygen in the event I might need to go back up the mountain to assist descending climbers.

What we can do now is contribute to a clearer understanding of what happened that day on Everest in the hope that the lessons to be learned will reduce the risk for others who, like us, take on the challenge of the mountains.

I don't know what being an Everest guide means. I am a coach, not a guide.

There are many questions, but I cannot answer because I'm not a businessman, I am a climber.

This year my role is clear: I am a coach, a coach to sportsmen.

I said to Scott that the ascent seemed to be going slowly and that I was concerned descending climbers could possibly run out of oxygen before their return to camp IV.

I think that people ran out of oxygen and don't really know what happened up there, maybe some of them just made things up because they weren't sure what had happened.

I will advise them on how to reach the summit, I will show them how, and I will help them, but I cannot be responsible for their safety.

I respect Everest very much.

Climbing is what I do.

How could the adventure seeker of today find satisfaction with the level of performance that was a standard set more than 40 years ago ?

I cannot say to be glad or not glad to be on Everest. It is my life. I have opportunity to be here, so I am here.

Mountains have the power to call us into their realms and there, left forever, are our friends whose great souls were longing for the heights. Do not forget the mountaineers who have not returned from the summits.

Honestly, I do not experience fear in the mountains. On the contraryI feel my shoulders straightening, squaring, like the birds as they straighten their wings. I enjoy the freedom and the altitude. It is only when I return to life below that I feel the world's weight on my shoulders.

Big mountains are a completely different world: snow, ice, rocks, sky, and thin air. You cannot conquer them, only rise to their height for a short time; and for that they demand a great deal. The struggle is not with the enemy, or a competitor like in sports, but with yourself, with the feelings of weakness and inadequacy. That struggle appeals to me. It is why I became a mountaineer.

Mountains are cathedrals: grand and pure, the houses of my religion. I go to them as humans go to worship...From their lofty summits, I view my past, dream of the future, and with unusual acuity I am allowed to experience the present moment. My strength renewed, my vision cleared, in the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn.

Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.

I see the psychology of this team, I see they respect me very much as a climber, not like last year - these people value what I bring to them.