APPLETON, Wis.—Around 200 people gathered Saturday in Christine Boskoff’s hometown to say goodbye to the climber who died while scaling a mountain with her companion in China last year.
“She had one of the most beautiful, infectious smiles,” recalled friend Ginny Fowler, of Jacksonville, Ore. “We all miss Chris terribly.”
Boskoff, 39, and boyfriend Charlie Fowler, 52, died in a November avalanche while climbing Genyen Peak in a remote, unexplored region of western China.
Fowler’s body was recovered in December, but the search for Boskoff was suspended because of dangerous weather.
Climbers recovered her body in late September. Services had been held for the pair in January in Telluride, Colo. The couple had a home in nearby Norwood.
Boskoff had climbed six of the highest mountains that top more than 26,000 feet.
“They had so many friends and people who admired them all over the world,” said Ginny Fowler, Charlie’s sister. “They were very giving and caring people. If there is ever going to be peace in the world, it’s going to be because of people like Charlie and Christine, embracing everyone they meet.”
Saturday’s services held at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Appleton helped bring the families closure, Fowler said. Boskoff’s mother still lives in Appleton.
During the services, Boskoff’s 2006 interview on the PBS series “Roadtrip Nation” was played. It was taped four months before she left for China.
Boskoff discussed her passion for climbing and outlook on life.
“We all kind of search around and wonder where we are going,” she said. “I found my place. If you really have a drive and focus to be the best, and passion, you will find it.”
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Boskoff became an electrical engineer. Several years into her career, though, she took a two-day mountain climbing course. She fell in love with the sport and it soon became her career.
In 1997, she and her late husband, Keith Boskoff, an experienced climber, purchased Mountain Madness, the Seattle-based adventure guide company and mountaineering school.
Family and friends say she was also passionate about helping children.
Boskoff was on the board of directors of Room to Read, a nonprofit agency that partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish schools and libraries.
An elementary school in her honor is being built in Nepal.
“Everybody is so proud of her,” said Boskoff’s brother, Paul Feld of Yorba Linda, Calif. “Her legacy is to give hope to everyone that you can do it, and that anything is possible. She put a positive twist on everything.”
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Information from: The Post-Crescent,
