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ExWeb Series: Jerzy Kukuczka - the ultimate legend, part 2
Nov 24, 2004 09: 35 EST
Jerzy "Jurek" Kukuczka has entered mountaineering history as ‘the second man to conquer all 14, 8000ers” after Reinhold Messner.
The description hints sort of a ‘second best’ rating - but nothing could be more off. The best are not always the first. In fact, many consider Kukuczka the greatest mountaineer of all. In this ExWeb series, we examine why.
In part 1, we wrote that Jurek summited all 8000ers in only eight years, compared to Messner's 16, most through new routes and/or in winter. He opened nine new routes, five climbs in alpine style and four in winter. That style is the reason why Jerzy is considered a reference on elegant climbing, pure spirits and deep respect for the rules of the game.
Today, part 2: The money, the visas and the suffering
A miner sees the light
Kukuczka’s expeditions had yet another difficulty: The financial/political one. Born in Katowice (Poland) in 1948, his life was meant to be nothing related to great heights and brilliant mountains: Jurek was a miner.
His initial adventure could be considered sort of job-related: His first contact with ropes and karabiners was not for climbing, but for - caving. Thus Jerzy's dream of the top of the world literally started underground!
Getting out
Obviously, in a Socialist Poland, spending huge amounts of money on something as unproductive as mountain climbing was simply absurd. To find sponsors proved very difficult. To that came the challenge of being able to leave at all. Obtaining visas was not easy for those living behind the iron curtain, especially not for a simple miner - the task perhaps as difficult as the planned routes themselves.
Dig where you stand
Jurek went with what he had. During all his life, he would climb using ragged, old, inadequate gear. He climbed where he stood; his climbs started in the Tatra mountains. In these circumstances, Jurek really needed a strong motivation to go on with the dream to climb in the Himalayas.
Ability to suffer and lack of response to danger
But motivation was the one thing that never lacked Jerzy. His bad luck also traded for great strength; in body and mind. Messner would remark that Kukuczka, once in the Himalayas, “was the strong man.”
His climbing partner Voytek Kurtyka said about him: -"Jurek was the greatest psychological rhinoceros I've ever met among alpinists, unequalled in his ability to suffer and in his lack of responsiveness to danger.”
Slow to acclimatize
He was slow to acclimatize, but that didn't stop him. He compensated with an incredible endurance and a remarkable capacity to withstand suffering. There was no obstacle big enough for this underdog. The greater the difficulties, the more appealing the challenge to Jurek.
The sheer force of will would ‘lift’ him up on the mountains. In the seventies he accomplished some superb climbs in the Tatras, Dolomites (winter climb on Marmolada South Face), and Mont Blanc Massif (from openings on the Dru North Face to winter climbs on the Grandes Jorasses).
He would get as far as Denali (South face) and Hindu Kush (Kohe Tez and the first climb of the North ridge of Tirich Mir East). That was a remarkable climbing career in itself. But the real deal was just about to start.
Next: Lhotse - the turning point
Image of the Tatras by Markiusz Markiewicz, courtesy of www.cs.put.poznan.pl
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