Jerzy Kukuczka

Jerzy Kukuczka
Jerzy Kukuczka on Mount Everest, 1980
Born	(1948-03-24)24 March 1948 Katowice, Poland
Died	Lhotse, Nepal
Occupation	Mountaineer

Kukuczka on graffiti in Katowice

Jerzy Kukuczka (24 March 1948 in Katowice – 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. He was one of an elite group of Polish Himalayan mountaineers who specialized in winter ascents (called Ice Warriors).

Year	Location	Mountain	Route	Comments
1979	Nepal	Lhotse	West Face	Normal Route
1980	Nepal	Mount Everest	South Pillar	New Route
1981	Nepal	Makalu	Variation to Makalu La/North-West Ridge	New Route, Alpine Style, Solo.
1982	Pakistan	Broad Peak	West Spur	Normal Route, Alpine Style.
1983	Pakistan	Gasherbrum II	South-East Spur	New Route, Alpine Style.
1983	Pakistan	Gasherbrum I	South-West Face	New Route, Alpine Style.
1984	Pakistan	Broad Peak	Traverse of North, Middle, Rocky and Main Summits	New Route, Alpine Style.
1985	Nepal	Dhaulagiri	North-East Spur	Normal Route, First Winter Ascent.
1985	Nepal	Cho Oyu	South-East Pillar	New Route, First Winter Ascent, Second Summit Team.
1985	Pakistan	Nanga Parbat	South-East Pillar	New Route.
1986	Nepal	Kanchenjunga	South-West Face	Normal Route, First Winter Ascent.
1986	Pakistan	K2	South Face	New Route.
1986	Nepal	Manaslu	North-East Face	New Route, Alpine Style.
1987	Nepal	Annapurna I	North Face	Normal Route, First Winter Ascent.
1987	China	Shisha Pangma	West Ridge	New Route, Alpine Style, Ski Descent.
1988	Nepal	Annapurna East	South Face	New Route, Alpine Style.

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.

Jerzy Kukuczka's memorial with Lhotse in the background

See also

• Istebna
• List of eight-thousanders.

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)