The reasons the Poles began climbing the Himalaya in winter were partly due to having the relevant experience from the Tatras and partly due to politics. In the

The reasons the Poles began climbing the Himalaya in winter were partly due to having the relevant experience from the Tatras and partly due to politics. In the age when the major Himalayan peaks were first climbed (the 50s and 60s) Polish climbers were not able to leave Poland for such trips. When the political situation started softening, there was a collective desire to put Poland on the climbing map. Since the obvious firsts on the 8000m peaks were no longer up for grabs, their attention turned to other variations: winter ascents, new routes, and alpine-style ascents. To claim the reasons were "mundane" is to massively underplay their vision and achievements. The leading Polish climbers of the 1980s were in the vanguard of the fast & light alpinism movement - up until then virtually all Himalayan climbing was done expedition-style. One of this group - Jerzy Kukuczka - was the second person ever to summit all the 8000m peaks, most of them via new routes or in winter and mostly in alpine-style ascents. The new route he put up K2 was previously deemed unclimbable by Reinhold Messner and has never been repeated.