text: "The Climb" was written by Bourkeev and DeWalt as an answer to Krakaur's "Into Thin Air". While not showcasing the same prose as Krakaur's book, I feel that this is utlamitely better. My reasoning for this opinion is that "The Climb" seems like a much more fair and unbiased account. Bourkeev does not resort to playing the blame game; he simply tells the story as he experienced it. Krakaur, it seemed to me at least, relied to heavily on assumptions, and we all now what happens when you assume (hint: you make an _____ out of you and me) and came off as very arrogant and (for some reason) took a feverious dislike to Bourkeev and Lopsang. Thought not as well written as "Into Thin Air", "The Climb" still managed to draw me in fully, although some parts of the book are a little confusing, mainly the interview with Bourkeev about his single handed rescue of three striken climbers who otherwise would have surely perieshed. This interview was conducted in English, the only problem with that is that Bourkeev's English is not very strong! It is passable and most of the time you can understand him but in other parts it is very hard to dechyper. DeWalt tries to help by adding "translations" about what Bourkeev is saying but I felt the interview should have been caried out in Bourkeev's native tongue of Russian and then translated into English. To not have done this is a great injustice to Bourkeev. If you want to read a fair and unbiased book about the May 1996 Everest tragidy that was written simply to tell the truth and not to play smeer tatics and make money (as Krakaur's clearly was), read this. I really recommend you read both books, though and also check out the IMAX movie "Everest".
  