On December 4, 2006, Fowler and Boskoff missed their flight home. Two days later, friends in Telluride, Colorado, and Seattle sounded the alarms — contacting the U.S. consulate, reviewing emails the couple had sent from China, searching Fowler’s computer files, and tapping into the climber grapevine. Based on information gleaned from Boskoff ’s last email, sent November 8 from the small town of Litang, they planned “one last two-week peak bagging excursion to the Genyen area.” Little else was known. “It was totally unlike Chris not to be in email contact for so long. If she had changed her plans, she would have told us,” said Mark Gunlogson, president of Mountain Madness, the guiding service he co-owned with Boskoff.

Still, no one wanted to think the worst. Maybe they were lost in the backcountry or pinned down by bad weather. Maybe they’d been arrested and were being held incommunicado. Or perhaps they had decided to extend their trip, as files found on Fowler’s computer clearly indicated interest in a number of peaks in the Eastern Himalaya. But friends were concerned — very concerned.
“As soon as I heard that Charlie missed his flight, I was really worried,” said John McCall, an old friend of Fowler’s. “Charlie was too damn cheap to ever voluntarily miss a flight.”

Fowler, 52, was famous for his longevity at the cutting edge of American climbing — in nearly every discipline — and for his uncanny ability to emerge from disasters relatively unscathed. In 1984, he took a 400-foot plunge out of the snowy North Chimney on Longs Peak and came away with nothing more than a bent crampon. And since the 1970s, his bold solo climbs had consistently pushed the envelope. He free soloed the 1,500-foot, ominous The Flakes, in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and once went cordless on the 700-foot, overhanging Diving Board, in Eldorado Springs Canyon, in resoled running shoes. In the alpine realm, he made the first ascent of the East Face of Cerro Catedral (VI 5.10 A4+) in Patagonia, in 1992, and his ice and rock accomplishments in the San Juan Mountains and in the Utah desert are too numerous to list. Fowler was also notoriously low-key. For example, when asked about his second-ascent free solo of the IV 5.10- Integral Route on the Diamond of Longs Peak, Fowler supposedly replied, “It was pretty casual,” thus giving the route the name by which it’s known today.

But it also seemed that Fowler was close to using up his nine lives. In 1997, while climbing in Tibet, he and his ropemates took a 1,500-foot fall that left him unable to walk. (During the epic crawl out he sustained serious frostbite, losing most of his toes; he later returned, with little fanfare, to climbing 5.12.) He had, in recent years, split his time between Himalayan expeditions — summiting three 8,000-meter peaks, including Mount Everest — and prolific new-routing around Telluride, Colorado.