The other Polish Line
Jon Krakauer once noted that the people who seek the Seven Summits - the highest peak on each continent - could set themselves a tougher challenge by instead climbing the second-highest peaks. In Europe Dykh-Tau instead of Elbrus; in North America, Mt. Logan instead of Denali…and in the Himalaya, K2 instead of Everest.
K2 is not just difficult, it is deadly. Everest requires strength and some climbing ability, but K2 - steep and avalanche-prone - requires serious technical work at extreme altitude. One climber dies for every six that make it to the summit; the ratio on Everest is one to 34.
There are not too many ways up K2. C.J. Leger gives a nice briefing in Base Camp Magazine (linked below). There was one route I’d not heard of before - the South Face Route, also known as the Polish Line:
The South Face Route of K2 is the most dangerous and demanding of all. It was first climbed in 1986 by Jerzy Kukucka and Tadeusz Piotrowski, who was killed on the descent. Entrance to this route is via the Pakistan side, and it starts off the first part of the Southwest Pillar before deviating into a highly exposed, snowy cliff area.
This route proceeds through a gully, “The Hockey Stick,” and rises through another completely exposed cliff-face. From here, climbers are met with more exposed terrain before it meets up with the Abruzzi Spur 1,000 feet before the summit. The route is very avalanche prone, which is partly why no one has ever attempted another summit via this route.
Jerzy Kukuczka was one of the titans of climbing. In 1987 be became the second man (after Messner) to climb all of the eight thousand meter peaks in the world. His route on K2 was achieved in the Alpine style, without oxygen, meeting Messner’s challenge to climb “by fair means.” He exemplified the bold Polish climbing style of the time. And, when not in the Himalaya, he financed his adventures by painting smokestacks.
Image Source: New York Times (link)
Kukuczka died in an accident on Lhotse in 1989. The loss to Polish mountaineering was incalculable. A contemporary tribute said
He was one of the greatest Himalayan climbers of all time and he placed the Polish flag on all fourteen 8000m peaks… The most important first ascents made by Kukuczka were Everest by the South Pillar (1980); Makalu solo (1981); Gasherbrum 2 and I (1982) with Wojciech Kurtyka; Broad Peak - the first traverse of the massif of three peaks (1983), also with Kurtyka; Dhaulagiri and Cho Oyu (1985), first winter ascents and in the space of three weeks.
As the Berlin Wall came down and Poland opened up, mountaineering - a Polish cultural obsession in the Cold War era - receded in the public imagination.
So it’s been heartening to see the new generation of Polish climbers get after it. They tried the first winter ascent of K2 in 2018, but had to abort the mission for safety reasons. The attempt was not without incident: one team member went rogue and tried a solo run to the summit, a moved deemed ‘suicidal’ by knowledgeable observers (he survived). But it was good they were in the neighborhood: four members of the team were called in to help with a rescue on Nanga Parbat. They climbed 1,000 meters in total darkness to rescue a stranded French climber.
But the Polish achievement that got me most fired up was the 2018 ski descent of K2 by Andrzej Bargiel. It’s not a completely crazy idea. Descending is typically more dangerous than ascending, and K2 descents are notoriously difficult. The difficulty has been finding a continuous line from the summit down to the Godwin-Austen Glacier. Bargiel found one, climbed K2 without oxygen, put on his skis and…
About seven hours later he skied onto the Godwin-Austen Glacier, about 3,400 meters below the summit, having finished the first complete ski descent of the mountain.
Poland keeps you humble though.
Returning to a hero’s welcome in Poland, Bargiel soon visited the family farm, where his father told him, “Well, you had a nice little holiday, but now it’s time to do some work.”
“Seven Second Summits” - Wikipedia (link)
C.J. Leger, “Routes Up to K2’s Summit” - Base Camp magazine (link)
Michael Powell, “Scaling the world’s most lethal mountain in the dead of Winter” - New York Times (link)
Ingeborga Doubrawa-Cochlin, “A Tribute to Jerzy Kukuczka (1948- 1989)” - American Alpine Club (link)
“Stranded French climber flown from Pakistan's 'Killer Mountain'“ - BBC (link)
“K2 on Skis” - American Alpine Club (link)