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

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When they arrived, Broad Peak Base Camp bustled with activity. Its proximity to K2 meant that climbers attempting that lofty peak need only take an easy hike of an hour to visit with those on Broad Peak. The Mountain Madness camp welcomed climbers both established and unknown. Among the more famous was Peter Hillary, the son of legendary alpinist Sir Edmund Hillary. He’d be attempting K2 with British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves, who just months earlier had reached the summit of Mount Everest without the assistance of Sherpas, fixed ropes, or bottled oxygen.

Unlike Chris, Alison had climbed for decades before arriving at K2 in 1995. But like Chris, she’d risen without much initial notice in the sport of mountain climbing. In a field packed with men, the women in Europe who’d gained notoriety had often been heralded more because of their gender than their accomplishments. This move ran counter to Alison’s core, just as it did with Chris, who thought of herself as a climber and not as a “female climber.” Following her recent success on Everest, Alison knew that her passion for climbing raised eyebrows. The reason: she was the mother of two young children. The press and critics within mountaineering communities created a narrative that accused her of “acting like a man” and attempting to “have it all.” As a leading professor of sport sociology at Brunel University in London put it: Alison’s “heroism was conditional upon her safe return to her children. No such demand is placed upon men: their deaths are the purest symbols of heroism.”