Loss still fresh in climber's death

Nearly a year after internationally known mountaineer Chris Boskoff died in an avalanche in China, her remains are back in Seattle where she lived part time.

But controversy about the fate of her adventure-travel company, Mountain Madness, and claims that her business partners withheld information that would help rescuers find her and climbing partner, Charlie Fowler, keep the loss fresh for those who loved her.

Joyce Feld, Boskoff's 80-year-old mother, wanted three things: Her daughter's body recovered from China's Mount Genyen; her daughter's personal effects; and the maximum amount possible from the sale of Mountain Madness so the proceeds could benefit Boskoff's favorite charity, Room to Read.

While Boskoff's ashes are now in Seattle, waiting for a friend to take them to Feld in Wisconsin, and Boskoff's climbing gear has been sent to Feld by the U.S. Consulate in China, the ownership of the adventure-travel company has yet to be settled.

She guided company

Boskoff bought the company in 1997 from the estate of Seattle climber Scott Fischer. At the time, one estimate put the value of the then-struggling company at $200,000. Boskoff said the price was too high and purchased it for a lower amount.

Her role was to guide the company while president Mark Gunlogson ran the business operation, a partnership that moved the firm ahead. Boskoff signed a shareholders' agreement to give the Mountain Madness stockholders an option to buy the company in the event of her death, with the price to be set by an appraisal.

Feld's appraiser came up with an estimate lower than she expected, an amount she won't disclose, and it dampened her dreams of giving a significant contribution to Room to Read, a charity that supports teaching reading in developing countries. Boskoff was among the first board members.

"You know the old saying, 'Disappointment was born of expectation,' " said Dave Jones, chairman of the Mountain Madness board. Boskoff's family are not mountain climbers, and they think because "Chris was a world-class athlete there was more to the balance sheet" of Mountain Madness than there is, he said.

In reality, many climbing companies are set up to support the climbing lifestyles of the owners and realize little profit.

Friends speculate that the real holdup in Feld agreeing to the sale of the company may be that Boskoff's remains are still not back in Wisconsin and Feld is unable to move to finalize anything without laying her daughter to rest.

Feld acknowledges that more than anything she wants to bury her daughter. "I'm getting so impatient," she said, earlier. "If I could, I'd go get her myself."

Last contact: November

Boskoff had led a climb of Cho Oyu in China last October and had gone with Charlie Fowler, a Norwood, Colo., photographer, to do an additional climb. On Nov. 8, she sent an e-mail to Gunlogson telling him they were going to climb the 20,354-foot Genyen in China's Sichuan province.

Feld got roses and a teddy bear for her birthday, Nov. 17, which Boskoff had preordered. Feld never heard from her daughter again. Her worry only increased with time and peaked on Dec. 4 when Boskoff and Fowler failed to return to Colorado on their scheduled flight. Boskoff divided her time between Telluride, Colo., and Seattle.

Boskoff and Fowler, who were romantically involved, were declared missing in mid-December.

In the confusion that followed, the Mountain Madness team and the team from Telluride immediately began raising funds for the search and coordinating their efforts. But looking for the climbers was difficult.

They gleaned information from both Boskoff's and Fowler's home computers and shared information, but somehow with all the e-mail flying back and forth, the Nov. 8 message naming Genyen Peak apparently didn't get to the Telluride team.

"It wasn't intentional," Gunlogson said. But other e-mails gleaned from Boskoff's computer that had the same information were shared, he said.

"In early December, there was a lot of conflicting information as to where they [the couple] were. We were trying to search an area as big as state of Washington," said Jones, Mountain Madness chairman.

And making things even more difficult, the People's Liberation Army in China did an initial search of the Genyen region and incorrectly reported there was no sign of the couple.

It was the beginning of hostility between the Seattle and Telluride groups that grew to include disagreement over how the search was conducted, among other things. The discord still rankles both sides.

On Dec. 27, Fowler's body was found and brought down to a monastery on the mountain and cremated.

In July, searchers found Boskoff.

But falling rock in the area, which Jones likened to putting rescuers at the end of an ice-slicked bowling alley, made it too hazardous to retrieve the climber's remains until last month, when the weather cooled again.

With her daughter still not laid to rest, closure was not something Feld was feeling.

In Appleton, Wis., she sits with Boskoff's photos, remembering her only daughter and the youngest of her four children, "her baby," and still waiting for her daughter's remains to be brought home.

Last week, Boskoff's body was moved to the monastery on the mountain and cremated. A Buddhist puja ceremony was performed to release her spirit. Then the ashes were sent to Seattle.

Once the ashes have been returned to Feld, she plans for burial beside Boskoff's father in Sheboygan, Wis. She expects to hold a memorial service in Wisconsin this month.

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com