Читать книгу Edge of the Map. The Mountain Life of Christine Boskoff онлайн

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As her breath created puffs of white, Chris came close. With a final, calculated hack into the ice, she pulled herself to the top of the pillar. A hundred feet below, Keith let out a hoot. He and Thor stood amazed at the feat, which had taken only a few hours for a relative novice. Keith gripped the rope in his guide hand, leaning back as she slowly descended.

“You owe us dinner in La Paz, dude,” Keith told Thor, laughing. Almost mumbling to himself, he said, “I’ve got to marry this girl.”

MOUNTAIN GUIDE HECTOR PONCE DE LEON heard Chris laugh. Not just once, but many times, interrupting the intensity of the climb. The clients on his 1993 guided Bolivia trip seemed drawn to Chris’s energy. At altitudes over twenty thousand feet, she seemed untroubled by the difficulties with food and physical limitations that usually worried novice climbers. Keith had expressed concern about her pushing too much, too fast, wondering if she realized how hard the challenge would be. But Chris’s first foray outside the United States showcased her ease in places far from home and high in the clouds. She appeared to be made for life in a tent on a high ridge.