The amazing life of Krzysztof Wielicki

It was his first eight thousander during the winter season, “I never expected to get to the top. I was the youngest one and my mountaineering experience was limited to seven thousand meter mountains” he says, amused. “Many questions come to my mind today, remembering those times, that climb. I wonder, for example, how things would have gone if we hadn’t reached the top, what would have become of the Polish Himalayan”. Krzysztof is right to ask those questions because that winter ascent to the Everest, on February 17th 1980, was a real revolution both for the world of mountaineering and for the Polish sports history. In a short time new alpine clubs were born and many people started to climb, to test themselves on walls and peaks looking for a dimension that until then was almost unknown in a country where most of the territory is made up of plains. “There was enthusiasm and a desire to do something new, we had the support of everyone so we went on”. A month of work and 7 of expeditions, “an amazing life” laughs Wielicki.
Life in Poland was not that amazing though, as Krzysztof tells in his biography “My life” published by Hoepli. Born in Szklarka Przygodzicka, a small village in the South West of Poland, his childhood was nice and offered him the opportunity to spend a lot of time outdoors, in contact with nature. He was the son of the school’s director so he had a more comfortable life than his friends who were busy all day working in the countryside. We are not talking about Italy in the 1950s, the Marshall Plan had not arrived beyond the Wall and socialist Poland was struggling to recover. In addition the State controlled, prohibited and homogenized everything without leaving room for free will.
Polish people were used to suffer already at home, maybe that’s why they gave their best in the winter. “Kukuczka one day told me that Western mountaineers were too used to the comforts of life compared to us” smiles Wielicki. “This is why the winter with its extreme conditions did not frighten us”.

Krzysztof’s first encounter with the vertical world was on the cliffs of Sokoliki, in south-western Poland. There, he took his first steps, experimenting with holds, pitons and ropes. However, the true love of the young guy would be the winter climbs where “you have to get by on your own”, inventing even bizarre solutions to get out of complicated situations.
“We used to go climb with gears completely different to nowadays’ comfort” he explains.
“We sewed plastic sheets on the inside of jackets to make them waterproof” but that didn’t work so well because it made them become very heavy suits to carry on the whole climb. “These were tough experiences that formed us in the spirit” winter after winter over the Tatras. Low mountains with terrifying conditions shared with the guys of the Alpine club. That club was a real fortune that allowed him not only to show his abilities in the mountains in order to build a different future, but also to discover the world outside Poland. “We had a passport as mountaineers, but we could not use it as we wanted”. Every trip had to be authorized and when coming back we had to returned the passport to the authorities.“It was a great occasion that allowed me to see the world, to climb in the Caucasus and on the Mont Blanc, to test the western gears that were lightweight years away for us”.
Everything changed with the Everest.
“Wielicki, Wojtek Wróż gave up. You will take part in the winter expedition”. An essential letter that informed Krzysztof about his participation in the 1980 National Expedition directed by Andrzej Zawada. It was a great surprise for him, he was enthusiast to become an athlete of the Olympic national team. “I felt like I was representing my country” he explains. “It was Polish time, the occasion to distinguish ourselves and let the world know what we were capable of. Until that moment we never had that opportunity” he now remembers with pride.
A national expedition, however, is different from all that Wielicki had experienced before, the proportions of the organizational machine were more frightening. Just the food stocks represented a hardly conceivable amount. Krzysztof was both fascinated by all of that and a bit intimidated. He was the youngest guy in a group where many people have an experience that was superior to his own. “I remained quiet and did what I was told” he comments.

Zawada had the merit for having created a cohesive group able to see, while working hard on the mountain, the common goal. The peak of the single was of little importance, but it was essential to be the first to violate an eight thousand during the cold season. “As I approached the summit, I didn’t think that at that moment I was writing my personal story and I think Leszek Cichy shared the same feelings.” No envy among the members of the 1980 expedition, only a healthy patriotic spirit, a genuine happiness because “it was a shared result”. It was the success of the whole expedition, and more than that. It was the victory of the whole Polish mountaineering group, of the whole nation. “While we were busy on the Everest, the newspapers followed our climb step by step from home. The country was thrilling and was waiting to see us on the summit as a goal expected as much as the final game of the soccer world championship”. Radio, TV, print media, those little group of Polish people engaged on the highest mountain on Earth had become the symbol of a state looking for success, for revenge.
Coming back from the expedition something changed. Krzysztof, head of the computerized systems laboratory at the Tychy car factory, decided to leave his job to pursue his passion. It was 1983 and his choice was not taken very well, especially by its family. “Leaving a managerial position to go and work as a simple worker has given the idea of ​​a relegation to the social scale. My mother was also very disappointed by my voluntary choice”. So many contrary opinions that he ignored, he had no intention of returning to the ranks. “I decided to take my life in hands and have the freedom to decide in the morning what I would do for the rest of the day” he says. So Wielicki drastically changed his career starting to working at high altitudes with the local High Mountain Club of Katowice. “With them I had much more time to train, climb and dream.” Some money, however, must be earned even though working hanging on a rope, in the Poland of the eighties, did not pay much. “We were good at inventing our work” laughs Krzysztof. With a handle, a roller and a bucket the group went to tall buildings, cooling towers or chimneys to offer their work. “With these activities we were able to keep our families, even though by law only a small part of the proceeds deriving from our work at high altitudes could be destined to us and to the maintenance of families”. To get that small percentage, it was also necessary to follow a long bureaucratic procedure.
Despite this, however, the guys managed to live with dignity and to allow themselves long periods in the mountains. “At that time life was cheap, selling something in exchange for money during an expedition or a trip was enough: we could get 50 dollars for a sleeping bag or a duvet, and in Poland you could live with that amount at least for two months”. Really staring to work came later, “when freedom came”.

Fifty years of mountaineering.
Krzysztof’s Himalayan curriculum is impressive. After the first experience on Annapurna he never stopped reaching the summit of all fourteen eight thousanders. Among these, Everest, Kangchenjunga and Lhotse were climbed for the first time in the winter, but that’s not all. When in the winter of 1988 he faced the Lhotse he did it solo form camp base 3 and, above all, without using supplemental oxygen. However, Wielicki’s mountaineering was not only made of winter expeditions, during the summer its exploratory spirit had repeatedly led it to the search (and realization) of new routes on the great giants of planet. He also played a coordinating and organizing role in dozens of adventures.
It is difficult to define Krzysztof today, he is the sum of all these experiences. He is a thoughtful man, with a note of impulsiveness. Probably something that reminds his youth, the same feeling you get while having fun around a table without ever talking about mountaineering. This is perhaps the most impressive thing about this man. His life is made of mountaineering, his memories are closely linked to this world. And yet, if someone isn’t speaking about it, he is able to make no reference to that world that has given him so much. “Mountaineering was the purpose of my life, but after a while I got bored repeating the same things over and over” he says with a smile. “More than my experiences, I like to talk about the profound meaning they have had on  me” he adds before explaining that when climbers become old they learn that defeats do not really exist. “There are no real defeats, if not death. Whenever you give up the summit by going back, you add something to your experience. Useful information to come back and succeed”.
A universal rule that applies both in mountaineering and in life.