As a slightly fanatic climber in the 1970s and 1980s I certainly followed some of the exploits of these top Polish Climbers. I also heard stories about them from Brits that I climbed with in the Alps in the 1970s. I even had a two degrees of separation experience with them in the early 1980s.
The first encounter with these truly hard men of Poland, came in 1975 which was my first summer climbing in the Tetons. Staying at the Climber's Ranch I had a few short term partners that I hooked up with, before I met Petr, a recent immigrant who was a mathematics professor at the University of New Mexico. We climbed together several weeks, and aside from the language difficult, our other challenge was that we had to carry two separate racks, as he had pitons and refused to climb with those "new things" (stoppers and hexcentrics). I have never climbed with anyone who ran out as much rope as he did. Being young, relatively inexperienced, and stupid, and also not knowing what a factor 2 fall was, I used to marvel at him running out 100 feet from the belay before he pounded his first pin.
Then again, in the late 1970s Jonathan Waterman introduced me, and I occasionally climbed with an ex-patriot Glaswegian named John Thackray. John lived in Manhattan, wrote for the Economist magazine, and eventually was also the editor for the American Alpine Club Journal. He seemed to know everybody ... and on one ice climbing trip in the early 1980s to New Hampshire, or more probably, the Adirondacks he talked about joining up with some Polish hard men in the Himalayas. He wanted to know if I fancied coming along! The deal was the two of us would provide the greenbacks (something like $2000 each) and the Poles would drive overland with gear and food. This all sounded quite nice until I asked about the objective; "oh, a four person, alpine-style ascent of the South Face of Annapurna." Well, I had read Bonington's account and knew I was in way over my head.
Then again, in the late 1970s Jonathan Waterman introduced me, and I occasionally climbed with an ex-patriot Glaswegian named John Thackray. John lived in Manhattan, wrote for the Economist magazine, and eventually was also the editor for the American Alpine Club Journal. He seemed to know everybody ... and on one ice climbing trip in the early 1980s to New Hampshire, or more probably, the Adirondacks he talked about joining up with some Polish hard men in the Himalayas. He wanted to know if I fancied coming along! The deal was the two of us would provide the greenbacks (something like $2000 each) and the Poles would drive overland with gear and food. This all sounded quite nice until I asked about the objective; "oh, a four person, alpine-style ascent of the South Face of Annapurna." Well, I had read Bonington's account and knew I was in way over my head.
The Poles put up two routes on Annapurna in the 1980s. The link below is from a nice review of Bernadette MacDonald's FREEDOM CLIMBERS.
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