Freedom Climbers

Bernadette McDonald is certainly one of the finest writers today on mountain literature which she has proven when first she wrote Tomaz Humar and then Freedom Climbers both of which deservedly won the Boardman Tasker Prize as well as the Grand Prize Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Festival.

The book is about the golden age of Polish Climbers who despite the oppression during the World War II and then under the suppression of communism proved themselves to be the best in the world in the 80’s and 90’s. By the time the Polish climbers started climbing outside Poland most of the bigger and famous mountains had already been climbed by the British, French, and Germans etc. So the Polish climbers excelled themselves in either climbing by new and difficult routes or climbed the high mountains in winters! The Polish climbers gave alpinism a new meaning to the climbs in the Himalayas.

The book should not be considered as a definitive history of Polish Himalayan climbing. The author has concentrated on certain personalities and specific climbs instead of cramming everything in one book and that is what makes the book very readable.

Freedom Climbers mainly covers the lives of the legendary Voytek Kurtkya, who proved that it is possible to climb difficult routes on big mountains in small teams. His climbs included 13 great faces in the Himalaya, six of which were 8000ers; Wanda Ruckiewicz who was the first Polish and the first European woman to climb Everest, she died climbing on the Kanchenjunga; Jerzy Kukkza who was the second person after Reinhold Messner to climb all 14 eight thousanders. But his climbs were considered better than Messner as most of these were either first climbs on new routes or were winter ascents! He died climbing on the Lhotse.

The book also delves on the climbs of Krzysztof (who climbed Broad peak in just 22 hours - fastest climb of an 8 thousander and the first one day ascent) and was the fifth person to climb all fourteen 8000ers after Messner, Jerzy Kuckza, Erhard Loretan and Carlos Corsolio.

Polish climbers proved to be a creative lot and devised a system of ‘trade’ during the communist rule. The items like food and climbing equipment that they got cheap in Poland were sold during the expeditions which fetched them a higher price and from that money either they brought other equipment not available to them or towards payment for their next international expeditions.

The Freedom Climbers by Bernadette McDonald, like Tomaz Humar, is definitely a book not to be missed by all mountaineers as well as persons interested in mountain literature.

Fatal Mountaineer

Fatal Mountaineer is a story of Willi Unsoeld, American Himalayan legend who in 1963 became a hero by climbing the Everest by the West Ridge along with Tom Hornbien. In fact, Unsoeld is a hero for Jon krakauer the author of Into Thin Air. Though the title Fatal Mountaineer is misleading in the sense that this book, unlike what is publicized, is not a biography on Unsoeld.

Ice climbing

The story unfolds with the death of Willi on Rainier mountain in an avalanche in 1979 and then proceeds on to the 1976 Nanda Devi expedition. Even on the expedition the book is less about Willi but more about the factional fights among the climbers. A lot of content talks about John Roskelley, the man who climbed Nanda Devi by a new route along with Louis Reichardt and Jim States. Also Roskelley was vehemently against any females joining the expedition fearing that it jeopardizes chances of success.

The book, winner of Boardman Tasker Prize for literature, delves a lot on Unsoeld’s daughter whom he had named Nanda Devi at birth for he was enchanted with the mountain. In the end Nanda Devi the climber is committed (dies at 24000 ft on the mountain) to Nanda Devi the mountain or Nanda Devi the goddess as is known in the Garhwal Himalayas. In fact lot many years later also people are questioning whether it was wise for her to continue climbing when she was not fit enough. But I feel that high on the mountains it is you yourself who can take that call and no one else.

Nanda Devi sanctuary is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and remains closed for all activities either for the locals or the outsiders and was opened for a short time. But the book also reveals, which I was completely unaware of, that the CIA in connivance with the CBI tried to place a nuclear device on top of this mountain in 1965 to spy on the Sinkiang region of China during those cold war days with disastrous consequences. They were unable to reach the top and dumped the nuclear device to come back the next year to complete the process and when they came they could not find the device as it was completed hidden by snow and ice debris and it is even possible that some radio active leakage may be wrecking havoc in this sanctuary even now.

What is lacking in the book by Robert Roper is that it only delves on two of Willi’s climbs of his climbing life (Everest and Nanda Devi) and more or less completely ignores his other achievements.