K2 Winter Odyssey presentation on Oct 30

lulululu

http://www.vimff.org/Site/K2%20WINTER%20ODYSSEY.html


rzysztof Wielicki (Poland): K2 Winter Odyssey

When: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Where: Centennial Theatre, North Vancouver, 2300 Lonsdale Avenue

Tickets: $15 in advance, $17 at the door, available at Centennial Theatre, 604 984-4484, and at Mountain Equipment Co-op (Vancouver and North Vancouver stores)

Presented by Vancouver Int’l Mountain Film Festival as part of Fall Speaker Series

Krzysztof Wielicki (Poland), one of the top world’s high altitude climbers, will be bringing his images, films and stories to share with the Vancouver public. Wielicki is the first man to climb Mount Everest in the winter time. He also climbed 2 other high Himalayan peaks in the bold winter first ascents - Kangchenjunga and Lhotse. He is the 5th man to stand on all 8000m peaks in the world, and he also climbed the 7 highest peaks of all continents. He keeps on pushing his luck on K2, the “Savage Mountain”, still unclimbed in the winter time.



Wielicki will be coming to Canada to participate at the Banff Film Festival, and before heading to Banff he will present his multimedia program to the Vancouver audiences at the Centennial Theatre on Tuesday, October 30 at 7:30 pm. He will be assisted by his fellow country man Jacques Olek who took part as some of the earlier reconnaissance expeditions.



Wielicki’s backpack is filled with a number of outstanding, breakthrough alpine achievements: first ascent on Everest in the winter (1980 with Leszek Cichy) – actually, a first winter ascent of an 8-thousander; first ascent of a 8000m peak in one day (Broad Peak, 1984, 16 hours up and 6 hours down, solo); a few new routes on the highest peaks, many of them climbed solo; 3 first winter ascents of the highest peaks (Everest, Kangchenjunga, and Lhotse). Wielicki, together with the famous Polish expedition leader Andrzej Zawada, originated the idea of climbing in the Himalayas in the winter. He is the 5th man on Earth to have climbed the obligatory and so well medialized all fourteen 8-thousanders, as well as the 7 highest peaks of each continent – but then, you in a way expect something like that from a stubborn Pole… a proud member of the Art of Suffering movement…



Wielicki’s list of climbing credentials with his “8000 meter peak notes” may actually appear longer – and to an outside observer more boring and drier - than Adam Szienkiewicz’s oeuvres all combined, however, a closer insight reveals a very passionate, interesting personality. Wielicki’s Bildung in the Art of Suffering started at the early age. During his first climbing season he crashed down and broke three of his lumbar vertebras. At the clinic, they stuffed him into a plaster corset up to his neck. The only “problem” was, his brother was getting married and their mother simply couldn't know that he was climbing at all, not to mention the hospital, his injury, corset and all. For his brother's wedding, he had to be there, and so he cut the plaster with a knife edge and escaped from the hospital through the balcony and roof. His friends had brought him clothes and nobody discovered anything. Many accidents followed, but the will to climb was stronger. Those climbing survival stories…


Wielicki’s name is associated above all with the first winter ascent of Everest, yet Wielicki got to the expedition from a reserve list. For Andrzej Zawada, the head of the expedition, he was but a greenhorn - he was only 29 years old and this was his first major expedition to the high ranges. The history of this expedition is fairly well known: in short, Wielicki reached the summit with Leszek Cichy. Interestingly, one could say that Wielicki started his Himalayan career from the rear end, from the highest mountain in the most extreme conditions…



He was a member of "Solidarnosc", the Polish underground party, escaping the officials, destroying and hiding secret documents, and being interrogated by the state police. He went to Alaska and earned some decent money by working hard as a fish gutter. That was his first contact with capitalism, a really dreadful experience, since it was the first time he had experienced fierce competition at the workplace. Then there came a period of working at heights, when there were two doctors and one assistant professor hanging on one chimney. Wielicki painted almost the whole of his native Silesia. To this day he shows his children where their daddy painted: the Katowice steelworks, mines, buildings, conveyor belts, chimneys of heat-generating plants, water towers... from Trzebnia to Zabrze.



Perhaps harder than climbing Everest in the winter, capitalism and fighting with the state police was Wielicki’s solo Nanga Parbat climb in 1996. After climbing K2 in the summer of 1996 he went on to solo Nanga Parbat directly afterwards. He was all alone, just him and the mountain. “This was when I was the most scared ever”. In the most recent years Wielicki was pushing for the first winter ascent of K2 making two notable attempts in 2002 and 2003 with a strong international team, getting always quite high but never to the top. In the vein of the great Polish romantic writers Wielicki secretly dreams about Polish climbers being the first people on all the world’s highest peaks in the winter time.



Wielicki is a Renaissance man of the mountains – any mountain, any style, solo or with friends, any season, home made crampons or top gear, you name it and Krzysztof can do it. If he doesn’t make it the first time, you bet he be seen there one year later A man of amazing human strength, both physical and mental. “Never stop climbing” is his motto, pushing on even when it hurts, but also knowing when it is time to turn around. “I will never stop climbing; because we should always try to make new and different goals – this is the key for mountaineering."