Galen Rowell

Galen Rowell, a respected mountaineer, writer, and photographer, became a prominent defender of Anatoli Boukreev’s reputation after the 1996 Everest disaster. By emphasizing both the rescue Boukreev carried out in a blizzard and the testimony Rowell gathered from Sherpas, he challenged Jon Krakauer’s portrayal and the claim that Everest’s Sherpas broadly blamed Boukreev for the tragedy.

Review of Krakauer’s account

On May 29, 1997, the Wall Street Journal published Rowell’s review of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Rowell argued that Krakauer’s presentation made Boukreev seem like an intransigent Russian guide who failed to help clients and irresponsibly refused supplementary oxygen. Against that image, Rowell set the scale of Boukreev’s actions: after climbing Everest without oxygen, he made several solo trips into a dark blizzard at 26,000 feet and rescued three climbers who were near death.

Rowell objected in particular to the way criticism of Boukreev’s early descent from the summit overshadowed the rescue. He argued that Krakauer had not conveyed the larger context: Boukreev had climbed Everest twice before, had experience with solo ascents of the highest peaks, and, according to Rowell, anticipated difficulties as clients neared camp. Rowell presented Boukreev’s decision to descend and be positioned to respond as preparation for an emergency, not proof of indifference. His review thus recast the descent as part of the circumstances that enabled the rescue.

Dispute over Sherpa testimony

The controversy continued in the argument over whether Sherpas blamed Boukreev for the disaster. Krakauer asserted that virtually every Sherpa on Everest in 1996 held Boukreev responsible. Rowell challenged that claim in correspondence with Krakauer shortly before Boukreev’s death, pointing to the apparent contradiction between the accusation and the fact that Boukreev’s clients survived without major injuries, while climbers who died or were seriously injured belonged to Krakauer’s party.

Rowell later tested the claim against accounts from the region. In the spring of 1998, he travelled to Nepal, trekked through the Khumbu, and spoke with more than thirty Sherpas, many of whom had been on Everest in May 1996. He reported finding no Sherpa who blamed the tragedy on Boukreev, and no one who knew of a Sherpa who did. Rather than treating a sweeping assertion as settled consensus, Rowell placed it against testimony he had sought directly.

Review of The Climb and remembrance

Rowell was also involved in the reception of The Climb, Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt’s account of the Everest disaster. While DeWalt was writing the book, Krakauer contacted Rowell to offer critical commentary; Rowell was preparing a review for the American Alpine Journal, which was reproduced with permission from Rowell and the American Alpine Club. His review opened by asking why another account was needed after the media’s extensive coverage, then answered that the coverage had left an escalating controversy. He described The Climb as Boukreev’s account of a major solo rescue performed only hours after his oxygen-free ascent.

Boukreev died in an avalanche on a winter ascent of Annapurna’s south face about a month after The Climb appeared in November 1997. Rowell’s review and public defense placed his death within a sharply divided struggle over the mountaineer’s legacy: some accounts cast him as a villain, while the American Alpine Club had recognized him for heroism. Rowell’s work did not erase the disagreement; it insisted that the rescue, the surviving clients, and the testimony of Sherpas be included in any account of what Boukreev had done.