Lhotse

Lhotse is the neighboring peak that draws Anatoli Boukreev back into the mountains after the 1996 Everest disaster, and the site of a second tragedy when Vladimir Bashkirov dies after reaching its summit. From Lhotse, Boukreev looks across to Everest and retraces the descent that ended at the point where Scott Fischer could go no farther; within days, Lhotse itself becomes the beginning and end of an attempted traverse between the two peaks.

Setting and Return

After the Indonesian climbers’ success on Everest, Boukreev and the other Russian climbing consultants returned to Kathmandu to celebrate and complete expedition business. In mid-May, once his work with the Indonesian team was finished, Boukreev and a friend flew to Lukla and began trekking back toward Everest Base Camp. He wanted to assess the mountain and weather for a possible Lhotse–Everest traverse: first summiting Lhotse, then crossing to Everest.

The journey back toward Everest also carried the weight of the previous year. Near Namche Bazaar, Boukreev met Dr. Ingrid Hunt, who had come to place a bronze memorial plaque for Fischer and said she did not intend to return to the Himalaya. Boukreev continued toward the mountain, hoping to find members of the Japanese expedition that had abandoned its Everest attempt. He had collected amulets and personal belongings near Yasuko Namba’s body after burying her beneath a cairn of stones, and wanted to return those possessions to her husband.

A Summit in the Shadow of Everest

A separate Lhotse expedition had been planned before the Everest climb, as Fischer had promised Boukreev that he would organize it. Fox, Madsen, and Pittman had signed on, with Boukreev and Beidleman as guides. Fischer’s death and Boukreev’s remorse over being unable to rescue Namba did not keep him away from the mountains; after the Mountain Madness clients set out from Base Camp on May 16, Boukreev began a solo ascent of Lhotse that evening.

At 5:46 p.m. on May 17, Boukreev reached the summit alone. From the top he looked toward Everest and followed the route the climbers had taken down. His gaze stopped at 8,350 meters, the height to which Fischer had reached. The summit was therefore more than a return to climbing: it placed Boukreev above the route of the disaster, but could not undo the fact that he had been unable to bring Fischer home.

The Aborted Traverse and Bashkirov’s Death

Boukreev’s intended Lhotse–Everest traverse was to be attempted with Simone Moro. On May 26, after Boukreev and Moro had summited Lhotse alongside eight members of a Russian team, the plan was abandoned. The ascent had already become a fatal ordeal: Bashkirov, a close friend of Boukreev and an adviser on the Indonesian expedition, had climbed without supplemental oxygen and collapsed after reaching the summit, stricken by altitude sickness.

Boukreev radioed the Russians’ highest camp to request oxygen. Two climbers immediately started upward with emergency oxygen, but arrived too late. Bashkirov died on Lhotse, and the proposed link between Lhotse and Everest ended not in a traverse but in another death on a summit. The mountain thus marks both Boukreev’s effort to return to climbing after loss and the recurrence of loss within that return.