Jerzy Kukuczka

Reinhold Messner, upon hearing that Kukuczka had completed all 14 eight-thousanders, wrote, "You are not second, you are great." The line was reproduced as the epigraph of Kukuczka's book and the Polish translation forms the title of a biography of him published in 2021. He died in 1989 while attempting to climb the south face of Lhotse.

Life and career

Józef Jerzy Kukuczka was born in 1948 in Katowice, to an ethnically Silesian Goral family. He practiced weightlifting in high school and began climbing mountains at the age of 17. He was a trained engineer by profession. In 1965, he became a member of the Mariusz Zaruski Tatra Scouting Club in Katowice. In 1966, he joined the Katowice Alpine Club and completed a climbing course in the Tatra Mountains. After climbing in the Tatras, he progressed to the Alps, Alaska and the Himalayas.

He climbed his first eight-thousander, Lhotse, in 1979. The following year, he reached the summit of Mount Everest via a new south pillar route. In 1985, he made first winter ascents on Dhaulagiri and Cho Oyu within three weeks. In 1986, he and Krzysztof Wielicki made the first winter ascent of the world's third highest mountain, Kangchenjunga. The same year, Kukuczka established a new route on the unclimbed south face of K2, which he and Tadeusz Piotrowski ascended alpine-style. Their accomplishment pushed the boundaries of Himalayan mountaineering, with Kukuczka regarding this as the "most challenging climb he had ever undertaken at altitude."

Throughout his career, he ascended all 14 eight-thousanders in less than eight years, a feat he achieved on 18 September 1987. 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 record by one month and eight days. Unlike many other prominent high-altitude climbers of his time, the routes Kukuczka chose were usually original, many of them first ascents and often done during the winter. He established ten new routes on eight-thousanders, which remains a world record, and climbed four in winter. He was one of an elite group of Polish Himalayan mountaineers called the Ice Warriors. They specialized in winter ascents. In 1987, he was named Man of the Year in Poland after summiting all 14 eight-thousanders.

Rivalry with Reinhold Messner

In the 1980s, journalists frequently described the progress of Messner and Kukuczka's climbs as a race to complete the grand slam of climbing, but both men stated they did not like the description or even the implication they were competing. Ultimately, Kukuczka completed his sweep of the world's eight-thousanders in the winter of 1986–87, after Messner finished his grand slam by scaling Manaslu and Lhotse in the autumn of 1986. Kukuczka accomplished this feat in under eight years, twice as fast as Messner. He also established 10 new routes on eight-thousanders to Messner's six. Messner climbed all eight-thousanders without supplementary oxygen. Kukuczka used supplementary oxygen on Mount Everest.

Timeline of ascents above 8,000 metres