Christine Boskoff

Chris­tine Feld Boskoff was born and raised in Apple­ton, Wis­con­sin, and spent her child­hood years keep­ing up with her three old­er broth­ers. In high school she excelled in math, sci­ence, and sports. She put her­self through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin in Mil­wau­kee, where she was one of few female engi­neer­ing stu­dents. After grad­u­at­ing, she was hired by Lock­heed in Atlanta at age 24. ​“I began climb­ing the walls at Lock­heed,” she laughed, ​“and then real­ized that I could climb the walls at the indoor gym in Atlanta instead.” There, she met Kei­th Boskoff, an expe­ri­enced climber and suc­cess­ful archi­tect 15 years her senior. Kei­th took her on a trip to Ecuador, where they climbed the country’s high-alti­tude vol­ca­noes. She was smit­ten both with the man and the moun­tains. In short order, Chris quit her job, mar­ried Kei­th, and com­mit­ted to climb­ing full-time.

Chris and Kei­th first met Scott Fis­ch­er in 1995 while climb­ing Broad Peak. Unbe­knownst to them, they would take over the lead­er­ship of Moun­tain Mad­ness two years lat­er, after Scott died on Ever­est. As the company’s lead­ers, they used their climb­ing expe­ri­ence and love for peo­ple and the moun­tains to con­tin­ue Scott’s dream of bring­ing the beau­ty and excite­ment of adven­ture to any­one who want­ed it. Sad­ly, Kei­th passed away in 1999 and it fell to Chris to keep her pas­sion for both climb­ing and Moun­tain Mad­ness alive. The com­pa­ny blos­somed under her lead­er­ship and it allowed her to fur­ther her own dreams along with the dreams of her clients.

In Decem­ber 2006 she and her climb­ing part­ner, Char­lie Fowler, were sched­uled to return from a per­son­al climb­ing adven­ture in the Sichuan Province of Chi­na. When they did­n’t, it was with great con­cern that our office began the effort to deter­mine their where­abouts, an effort that ulti­mate­ly led to Genyen Peak. Once there, the search and res­cue team found Char­lie’s body at the base of the north face. Chris­tine remained miss­ing until the sum­mer, but a recov­ery effort then was ham­pered by poor weath­er and rock fall haz­ards to the recov­ery team. In Sep­tem­ber 2007, with improved con­di­tions for the recov­ery team, she was recov­ered and her remains cre­mat­ed in Chi­na for return home to the U.S.

Chris was inspi­ra­tional for many rea­sons — her big-peak climb­ing; her busi­ness lead­er­ship; her even-keeled, pos­i­tive atti­tude — but maybe the most inspi­ra­tional thing about her was her all-in approach to life and her deci­sion to fol­low her dreams. She left a well-pay­ing job as an aero­nau­ti­cal engi­neer to take a chance on a com­pa­ny. That gut­sy move led her to the high­est peaks of the world and offered her a vehi­cle with which to share her pas­sion. What she left behind for all is Moun­tain Mad­ness and an appeal to get out there and live big! Her sto­ry can be found in the book, ​“Edge of the Map, (see below).

To learn more about ​“The Moun­tain Life of Chris­tine Boskoff check out the book below.

Order here!