Remembering Chris Boskoff

Hard to imag­ine it was ten years ago that Chris­tine Boskoff and Char­lie Fowler died in the remote moun­tains of Tibet. On a recent trip to Nepal, Kili Sher­pa and I rem­i­nisced about her, how they met, which was a series of coin­ci­den­tal meet­ings in ran­dom places in the Ever­est region, and our amaze­ment of how time flies.

2016 was a year full of such mark­ings of time; it was ten years since Chris passed and twen­ty years after Scott died on Ever­est. Per­haps over­shad­owed some by Scott’s lega­cy and larg­er than-life per­son­al­i­ty, Chris also led her life to its fullest, some­what more qui­et­ly I sup­pose, but no less remark­able. She was at the time con­sid­ered the pre­mier female high-alti­tude climber of the world, with no less than six ascents of 8,000-meter peaks.

And as much as she began to shun the lime­light towards the end, which for so many rea­sons had already sent her in a tra­jec­to­ry of fame, she chose to climb for her­self, in more of the true spir­it of moun­taineer­ing; that of self-dis­cov­ery, psy­chi­cal chal­lenge, immer­sion in the nat­ur­al world, and a con­nec­tion to moun­tain cul­tures. It was a life to be not­ed! Think­ing about you Chris.

Post­ed by Mark Gun­log­son

Please take the time to read some accounts of Chris below and some sto­ries of the dra­ma that unfold­ed with her and Charlie’s disappearance.