Cho Oyu

Cho Oyu is the first of two 8,000-meter peaks Anatoli Boukreev climbed alone and without supplementary oxygen after returning to the mountains in 1996. The September 25 ascent marked a decisive return to the work and life he considered his own, following family bereavement and the controversy surrounding Everest.

The Return to Climbing

In August 1996, Boukreev left the United States for his family home in the Urals. His mother had died earlier that summer, shortly after he attended memorial services for Scott Fischer. He visited his brothers and sisters and mourned before turning again toward the mountains. He described high-altitude climbing as a lonely and strange life, but also as his home and his work; he had committed himself to the 8,000-meter peaks he had yet to climb.

The Ascent

Returning to Nepal, Boukreev summited Cho Oyu alone on September 25, without supplementary oxygen. The mountain rises to 8,201 meters. The ascent was not an expedition with a team described in the account, but a solitary climb following his return from home and grief.

The Next Peak and the Return to Everest

Boukreev continued from Cho Oyu to Shisha Pangma, summiting its North Summit, at 8,008 meters, on October 9. These back-to-back ascents show the resumption of his climbing commitment in concrete terms. During the same fall season, he stopped in Kathmandu to visit his friend Ang Tshering Sherpa at Asian Trekking. There he was asked to consult for an Indonesian team planning a spring attempt on Mount Everest by the Southeast Ridge Route, the route Boukreev had guided the previous year for Scott Fischer. After deliberation, he accepted the role of lead climbing consultant.

Significance

Cho Oyu’s place in this sequence is both geographic and biographical: it was the first summit of Boukreev’s renewed season, before Shisha Pangma and before his return to work connected with Everest. His later decision to join the Indonesian expedition was bound to unfinished emotional business on the mountain, including his wish to arrange respectful burials for Fischer and Yasuko Namba. The account presents the Cho Oyu ascent as part of a return to climbing after loss, not as a resolution of what remained unresolved on Everest.