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JERZY KUKUCZKA & THE POLISH CLIMBERS

We had run out of vodka. Unfazed, the Polish expedition doctor made cocktails with medicinal alcohol and orange juice powder.

Jerzy Kukuczka had just climbed his 14th 8000m peak and we were celebrating in Shisha Pangma Base Camp, Tibet. Having climbed only one 8000er at that time, I was in awe of his achievement. To climb all 14 seemed like going to the Moon.

Artur Hajzer, Wanda Rutkiewicz and Jerzy Kukuczka at Shisha Pangma Base Camp, sorting loads for higher up the mountain. The T-shirt slogan has a misprint: it should read 8046m.

The breathtaking summit ridge of Shisha Pangma, looking to the main summit at 8046m. The tracks made by Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer the day before are still in the snow for Steve and me to follow to the summit.

Kukuczka was unassuming and quietly spoken. In Kathmandu he would smoke and drink whisky every night but stopped smoking on the walk-in to Base Camp. He ate speck (pork) every day and paced himself carefully, acclimatising slowly but surely. He did not rush around or try to make a summit bid before he felt properly acclimatised. I learned a lot from him.

Over the course of the expedition I had got to know and tune in to the Polish attitude. Kukuczka’s wicked sense of humour was similar to mine so I could not resist asking him whether he had been to the top of Kangchenjunga. Many climbers stop short of the summit out of respect for the people of Sikkim, who regard the mountain as sacred. His answer in broken, Polish-accented English was emphatic: ‘Oh yes! I stomped all over f***ing summit!’ I remember wondering what I would do if I ever climbed Kangchenjunga.

My first meeting with Jurek, as his friends called him, was in his Polish hometown of Katowice, in 1987, when Poland was still in the Soviet Bloc. I was visiting as a guest of the High Mountain Club of Katowice and we were heading off to the Tatra Mountains for some winter climbing. Jurek, already a legend, had just returned from the winter ascent of Annapurna, his 13th 8000m peak. Other well-known Polish climbers joined the Anglo-Polish Tatra climbing meet, including Voytek Kurtyka, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Artur Hajzer, Janusz Majer and Krzysztof Wielicki. It was -15°C and the snow was black with Katowice’s coal dust and pollution. I could see how the bleak harsh landscape and lifestyle had toughened up these gnarly mountaineers. I enjoyed a couple of winter trips to the Tatra and two Himalayan expeditions with the Poles. I always felt we were on the same wavelength. It seemed as if the British and Polish understood each other. Sadly, Jurek died while attempting a new route on Lhotse in 1989, and Artur died on Gasherbrum I in 2013.

Janusz Majer, Carlos Carsolio, Krzysztof Wielicki and Jerzy Kukuczka prepare loads in a Kathmandu hotel room in August 1987. I planned to go directly from the Shisha Pangma expedition to join Wielicki on Lhotse South Face.