Jerzy Kukuczka (24 March 1948 in Katowice â€" 24 October 1989 Lhotse) - was a Polish alpine and high-altitude climber. Born in Katowice, his family origin is Goral. On 18 September 1987, he became the second man, after Reinhold Messner, to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders in the world. He is the first man who made the first winter ascents of three eight-thousanders: Dhaulagiri with Andrzej Czok in 1985, Kangchenjunga with Krzysztof Wielicki in 1986 and Annapurna I with Artur Hajzer in 1987. He is the only climber to have ascended four of the eight-thousanders during winter. Along with Tadeusz Piotrowski, Kukuczka established a new route on K2 (the so-called "Polish Line"), which no one has ever repeated.
Eight-thousanders
Kukuczka is widely considered among the climbing community to be one of the best high-altitude climbers in history. He ascended all fourteen eight-thousanders in just seven years, 11 months and 14 days - He held the world record for shortest time span to summit the eight-thousanders for nearly 27 years until May 2014 when Kim Chang-ho beat his mark by one month and eight days. During his career, Kukuczka established ten new routes and climbed four summits in winter (compared to 6 new routes of Messner's, none of them during winter). He was one of an elite group of Polish Himalayan mountaineers who specialized in winter ascents (called Ice Warriors).
He climbed all summits, except for Mount Everest, without the use of supplemental oxygen.
Kukuczka died attempting to climb the unclimbed South Face of Lhotse in Nepal on 24 October 1989. He was leading a pitch at an altitude of about 8,200 meters on a 6 mm secondhand rope he had picked up in a market in Kathmandu (according to Ryszard Pawłowski, Kukuczka's climbing partner on the tragic day, the main single rope used by the team was too jammed to be used and the climbers decided to use transport rope instead), the cord either was cut or snapped from a fall, plunging Kukuczka to his death.
See also
- Istebna
Bibliography
Kukuczka, Jerzy (1992). My Vertical World: Climbing the 8000-Metre Peaks. Mountaineers Books. p. 189pp. ISBN 0-89886-344-9.Â
WÄ…sikowski, Piotr (1996). Dwa razy Everest. PiT.Â
Kukuczka, Jerzy (1990). Na szczytach swiata. Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza. p. 193pp. ISBN 83-03-03166-X.Â
External links
- Everest History: Jerzy "Jurek" Kukuczka
- Poland.gov.pl: The Crown of the Himalayas
- The legend: 5 stars out of 5
- Jerzy Kukuczka, il trailer del nuovo film (Italian)
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