Brief encounter!
‘It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear beginning to live!’...Marcus Aurelis
Bernadette McDonald continues to mine the rich history of the Polish ‘Ice Warriors’ of the 1970’s and 1980’s. For almost twenty years Polish mountaineers dominated the Himalayan winter climbing scene. Surely the most demanding form of climbing physically, and of the fourteen 8000 metre peaks, eight were first ascended by Polish climbers in that season, and a fact that is true, it was the example of that countries mountaineers which inspired other nations to enter this arena. One that is still the case, despite the improvement in equipment and technical knowledge, a form of mountaineering that can only be successfully overcome by those well versed in the art of suffering, whilst facing up to potential wind speeds in excess of 150 kph and temperatures as low as minus 50C.
But why was this type of climbing so suited to Polish-mountaineers? I learned first- hand in 1967 during a visit to their mountain range, the Tatra how hard physically they were. History had dealt them a challenging hand, for in the last war and the subsequent Cold War they were victims of ruthless neighbours, first Nazi Germany, then-Stalinist Russia. In 1967 camping with some of their climbing fraternity one realised how hardy they were, for their equipment was rudimentary, and some had no tent and just slept out covered by a blanket, living mainly on beetroot! This in a mountain area with less settled weather than the Alps; a higher rainfall and in winter almost Himalaya type of conditions.
The Polish climbers were as I learnt on
a lecture tour post climbing in the Tatra, very good at ducking and
diving and milking the communist system to their benefit. McDonald
makes a good job of setting the scene in her introduction to ‘WINTER
8000’ , and she has already made an outstanding contribution in
recounting Polish climbing history, for her two previous books
‘Freedom Climbers’(2011) and the ‘Art of Freedom’ (2017)
were both Boardman/Tasker prize winners. However the Chair of the
Judges at the first of these mused ‘how come a Canadian is writing
the history of another-countries climbers?’I guess it is because
despite the geographic separation Bernadette finds this history so
compelling, and to be fair she is the author in total of eleven books
on mountaineering and mountain cultures, the majority of which have
little or no Polish connection.
The story of this book comes to life with the Polish climbers Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy summiting Mount Everest (8,848 metres) 17th February 1980. The leader of this expedition was Andrzej Zawada, and if anyone can be cited as the grandfather of Himalayan winter climbing it is Andrzej, someone who I personally counted a friend and who in 1975 led a party of Polish climbers to visit Britain as guests of the BMC. I remember lively discussions between Dennis Davis and Zawada about if it was possible to climb 8,000 meter peaks in winter, and why any climber would wish to risk such an ascent in the inevitable extreme conditions. Dennis was well versed in Polish climbing for he had lived and worked in that country in the mid-1960’s, based at Oswiecim near Krakow he had climbed regular weekends in the Tatra, including with Kurtyka and Rusieki making the first winter ascent of the super-directissima of the North Face of Mieguszowiski.
A climb still held in high regard by the Taternik’s. Before the success on Everest, Zawada had built up winter experience on other mountains with a successful climb of Noshaq (7,492) the second highest Peak in the Hindu Kush range in February 1972 and led an attempt on Lhotse in the 1974/5 winter season. One has to agree with the author that he was some kind of visionary, and he had learnt that above all one needed patience for success on such ascents. With days and weeks spent at a lower height and or in a Base Camp waiting for a window of settled weather. But ready to make a summit bid if radioed in with a good weather forecast; such support especially provided for each expedition. By the decade of the 1980’s much was to change for the Polish climbing fraternity, with the political developments brought about by the Solidarity movement, they were now living in a democratic capitalist country. One of the ways that they were able to better finance their climbing was by what we call ‘Access’ work, especially painting and pointing the high factory chimneys around such cities as Katowice.
Post Everest the doors opened for Polish winter climbers, and next was to be Manaslu(8,163metres). An expedition led by Lech Korniszewski, and the summit reached on 12th January 1984 by Maciej Berbeka and RysardGajewski. Followed by Dhaulagiri(8,167 metres) 21st January1985, on an expedition led by Adam Bilczewski and summited by Adrzej Czok and Jerzy Kukuczka. The latter someone who became famous in his quest to be the first to climb all fourteen 8,000 metre peaks. He was the second to do so, and his ascents were notable in that they either were by a new route or in winter. Cho Oyu (8,188 metres) was also ascended in the winter of 1985 and Kanchenjunga on 11th January 1986. Annapurna was to be climbed the next year by an expedition led by Kukuczka, who summited with Artur Hajzer.
Post these six winter expeditions, the Poles joined up with other nations climbers to mount expeditions. One of the reasons they did this was because of the need for some hard currency, for the Zloty like the Pound had real difficulties in the 1980’s. Lhotse (8,516 metres) was climbed on 31st December 1988 by a joint Belgian-Polish expedition led by Krzysztof Wielicki (who also summited Everest as above and Kanchenjunga with Kukuczka). Shisapangma (8,027 metres) was climbed on 14th January 2005 by a Polish-Italian expedition, with the summit reached by Piotr Morowaski and Simone Moro.
This latter marked the end of Polish dominance of this field of climbing by the so called ‘golden generation’ of their mountaineers. Adam Bielecki was to observe later, ’Our Winter domination was the fault of Stalin and Beirut because they locked us in a cage. When others were doing the first ascents of the 8,000metre peaks we remained trapped behind the Iron Curtain. When it finally lifted we jumped out of the cage. We were very hungry’ (Beirut was a Stalinist style first President of Poland after the war). It also was the start of a new style of expedition, smaller, more compact, more in the style of Alpine ascents. This was only made possible by improved weather forecasting, and equipment. Makalu (8,485 metres) was the next to be climbed on the 9th February 2009 by an International expedition led by Simone Moro, who summited along with a new 8,000 metre star Denis Urubko. The same team climbed Gasherbrum 11 (8,034 metres) on the 2nd February 2011.
A new Polish winter programme initiated by Artur Hajzer fired up a younger generation of their mountaineers and on the 9th March 2012 during an expedition led by him, Gasherbrum 1 (8,080 metres) was summited by Janusz Golab and Adam Bielecki. Unfortunately Hajzer died in a fall during the expedition. The following year an expedition to Broad Peak (8,051 metres) led by another Polish winter guru Krzysztof Wielicki which was successfully climbed by Maciej Berbeka, Adam Bielecki, Artur Malek and Tomas Kowalski on 5th March 2013. Finally Nanga Parbat (8,125 metres ) was climbed after many attempts on 26th February 2016 by Alex Txikon, Ali Sandpara and Simone Moro. Included in the new Alpine style of expeditions was a more comfortable life experience whilst waiting out for good weather windows in Base Camps. A generator became de rigeur, providing access to the outside world, with phone connection and social media. Simone Moro it seems is a star on these latter with so many likes and followers he could be a part of a cutting edge Rock Band.
Only K2 (8,611 metres) remains of the 8000 Peaks to be climbed in winter but this is not from want of trying. Polish, Russian, Italian and International teams have all tried. Zawada inevitably was drawn to this mountain of mountains and put together a joint Polish/Canadian/British attempt in 1987/8 where the realities of the geographic situation of this mountain, being further north than Everest, and its higher reaches swept by winds emanating from Sibera have made it the most challenging of all the winter objectives. However the Poles have announced they will make another attempt in the coming winter 2020/1.
There is so much more to McDonald’s book than I have so far intimated, in some aspect it is a grim ‘thanatos’ story with death a possibility looming on almost every other page. In Appendix A at the rear of the work is the list of the climbers involved in this story. And of all the climbing games, attempting the highest peaks in the Himalaya in winter must be the most dangerous. More than a dozen have died in this form of mountaineering some of whom were well known names to British climbers: Anatoli Boukreev the elite Kazakh alpinist died in a winter attempt on Annapurna on Christmas Day 1997, Jerzy (Jurek) Kukucska one of the stars of Himalayan winter climbing died on Lhotse in 1989, and Wanda Rutkiewicz disappeared on Kanchenjunga in 1992. Wanda was one of the key note speakers at one of the BMC National Conferences in Buxton. And her mountaineering record was impressive, for she had climbed eight of the 8,000 metre peaks, including the first female ascent of K2, and when she was in the UK we intended to do some climbing in the Peak but as usual the weather in mid-March, the time of the Conference it was too bad.
There is however much that it is uplifting in this story not least the rescue by four climbers taking part in a winter K2 Polish expedition which also included Denis Urubko, who left that mountain to take part in the rescue high on Nanga Parbat in 2018, of the French female climber Elisabeth Revolv. Her partner had died and through a super human effort, Adam Bielecki and the ethnic Russian Urubko raced up thousands of feet to reach her, for she was too high for a helicopter rescue. Revolv eventually made a complete recovery and returned to Himalayan climbing.
Inevitably in such a demanding arena there are personality clashes, and though McDonald does not over egg these she does cover them with some diplomacy. One dispute is to whether winter ascents in the Himalaya should cover the Calendar winter, starting on 21st December and finishing 21st March, or the Meteorological –winter, starting 1st December and to be completed by the end of February. Simone Moro who has made first ascents of four winter 8000 metre peaks is a proponent of the latter view, and he has carried out quite a strong campaign over this, disputing winter ascents made in March! This has not enamoured him to those making such claims.
8000 WINTER is I believe the most outstanding work of McDonald’s three Polish mountaineering history books. Her research and detail is so thorough, the only weakness is in the writing up of dialogue. It seems that Polish mountaineer’s in particular only talk to each other in platitudes? ‘Have you put your down trousers on?’ is a typical example of a Base Camp call to a climber at a camp higher up the mountain. I suspect that like British climbers in such a stressful situation the language would be more- fruity!
I will finish by quoting directly from WINTER 8000, as a tribute to those climbing friends from that ‘Golden Generation’ of Polish mountaineers including Andrzej (who succumbed to cancer in 2000), Tadeuz who died on K2 and Wanda who disappeared on Kanchenjunga in 1992; ‘These imperfect tales are all that we have and in sharing them, we can try to understand the souls of the Ice Warriors, those men and women who find the greatest fulfilment in the highest mountains in the coldest, shortest, darkest days: the cruel days of winter’
Everything about WINTER 8000 is excellent, as someone who once studied graphic design I think Vertebrate have excelled themselves on this production; and it is for me their best yet.
Winter 8000.Climbing The World’s Highest Mountains In The Coldest Season. Bernadette McDonald.256 pages black and white text including some relevant pictures plus 2x8 page inserts of colour prints, case bound with dust jacket cover. £24.
Dennis Gray: 2020
