The following chapter is excerpted from Mountaineering Women: Climbing Through History, by Joanna Croston (2025). Published by Thames & Hudson Ltd, London, www.thamesandhudsonusa.com. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Wanda Rutkiewicz was one of the most successful mountaineers of her generation, especially when it came to visionary all-women’s expeditions. As she approached the age of fifty, she became increasingly obsessed with becoming the first woman to ascend all fourteen 8,000-meter (26,247-foot) peaks, a project she called her “Caravan of Dreams.” By 1991, she had climbed eight of the fourteen. Sadly, as she attempted Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest peak, she died, leaving the Caravan of Dreams unrealized.
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Mountaineering Women: Climbing Through History
By Joanna Croston
“My life doesn’t have any meaning until it’s the way I want it to be.
I’d rather not waste my life, I prefer to risk it.”
– Wanda Rutkiewicz
Polish climbing celebrity Wanda Rutkiewicz had never worked so hard for a summit. She couldn’t quite believe she had made it to the top. She had already been successful on five 8,000-meter (26,247-foot) peaks, but K2 had remained elusive. In 1986, this was her third attempt on the world’s second highest mountain. With her successful climb of Everest eight years earlier, Rutkiewicz had become the third woman and the first Polish climber to reach the top of the world. She was on a roll and the media loved her, but standing atop K2 was not the time to celebrate. She still had to come down off the mountain, a journey that would prove more challenging than anyone on her team expected.
Rutkiewicz glanced ahead, through the raging wind and driving snow near the top of the Bottleneck, a narrow icy pinch and one of the steepest sections of K2’s Abruzzi Spur. She froze. Her climbing partner, French journalist Michel Parmentier, descending quickly in front of her, had slipped. He was now sliding down the precarious icy slope. Rutkiewicz was sure he would be severely injured and she would be forced to organize a complex high-altitude rescue—or worse still, he might plummet to his death. Remarkably, Parmentier hit a firm snowbank, breaking his fall. He stood up, dusted himself off and continued downwards without so much as a glance in her direction. Rutkiewicz could hardly believe her eyes, but she had no time to wonder at his luck. Getting back to camp had to be her primary goal and she would let nothing distract her.
Rutkiewicz’s early life had equipped her well to respond to desperate situations in the mountains. She grew up in post-war Poland, where life was not easy under Soviet occupation. Millions of Poles had been dispossessed of their properties under communism. Cities were in ruins and food was scarce. When she was very young, her brother had been killed while playing near an unexploded landmine, a horrific episode in her family history that would have a lasting emotional impact. When Rutkiewicz was an adult, her father was brutally murdered and dismembered by his assailants. She was sent to the morgue to identify the body. These traumatic incidents shaped Rutkiewicz’s character, building the strength and mental fortitude that distinguished her climbing career.
Rutkiewicz had been working towards her successful summit of K2 for decades. Early in the 1960s, she discovered climbing through friends at university and took every opportunity to meet with other climbers between her studies in mathematics and engineering. She began climbing at the small local crags of Góry Sokole near Katowice before making her first forays into the higher and more challenging Tatra Mountains. From the outset, Rutkiewicz built a special relationship with other women climbers, though there were very few in the Polish climbing community at the time. These friendships would become an important aspect of her life once she started organizing large expeditions in the decades that followed.
By 1967, Rutkiewicz had completed four trips to the Alps, all on a shoestring budget. In 1968, along with fellow climber and countrywoman Halina Krüger-Syrokomska, she took on the intimidating Trollryggen—a huge vertical wall in Norway. She had met Krüger-Syrokomska the year before in the Alps. They proved to be a formidable rope team and became the first all-women’s team to ascend the East Buttress of Trollryggen. They returned to Poland to a rapturous reception. Climbing was a national sport and they were the darlings of the communist party.
Following her success in Norway, Rutkiewicz was invited to join several large mixed-gender expeditions to Central Asia, but she never felt she was treated as an equal. Her best moments came when she was climbing with like-minded women. Never been one to conform to societal expectations, she made it her mission to plan and execute women-only expeditions. After a particularly tumultuous trip, Rutkiewicz confided in a friend, “Climbing with all-women teams gives me the most satisfaction because even the presence of a man on a rope sometimes subconsciously frees one from taking responsibility for a climbing action.”
Before 1974, no woman had summitted any of the 8,000-meter (26,247-foot) peaks in the Himalaya. This did not escape Wanda’s notice. With lofty goals in mind, she systematically began to hone her technical skills in preparation. In 1973, she turned her attention to the Alps and—along with Danuta Wach and Stefania Egierszdorff—made a notable first female ascent of the North Pillar of the Eiger in Switzerland, despite almost losing her toes to frostbite. The climb was the second ascent overall and was widely celebrated by the Polish media. Rutkiewicz rode the momentum of this victorious climb and organized many all-women’s expeditions in the decade and a half that followed.
After the Eiger, Rutkiewicz made a first ascent on Gasherbrum III (the highest unclimbed peak at the time) and the first all-women’s ascent of the North Face of the Matterhorn. She also became the first Pole to reach the summit of Everest. In 1981, Rutkiewicz applied for a permit to climb K2 the following season. To prepare, she planned a training expedition to the highest mountain in Europe, Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus. This proved to be a mistake when one of her companions above her fell, knocking her more than 200 meters (656 feet) down the slope. When she came to, Rutkiewicz realized that she had badly broken her leg; her trip to K2 was in jeopardy.
Wanda in Karakorum on the way to K2 basecamp, 1992. Wanda was the leader of the women's expedition to K2, despite having suffered an accident on Elbrus and two serious leg surgeries. Photo from the Wanda Rutkiewicz archive
Rutkiewicz underwent multiple surgeries and a long recovery period. But she refused to let the injury deter her; as a Pole with little access to currency beyond the Iron Curtain, she was acutely aware that her Pakistani climbing permit fee was non-refundable. So, in the spring of 1982, as planned, she managed the arduous multi-day trek to basecamp on crutches so that she might support the other women—who would now attempt the summit without her. In her book Savage Summit, author Jennifer Jordan describes the trip:
“Gritting her teeth against the pain, Wanda wore through several pairs of crutches on the onerous eleven-day journey but was nonetheless nonchalant. She was determined not to slow the team down and not to feel sorry for herself… she used her crutches to propel herself from rock to rock and over to the increasingly wild floodwaters of the Baltoro and Godwin-Austen Glaciers.”
As the rest of the women worked hard to set up higher camps, Wanda managed to hobble along and reach the team’s advanced basecamp at 5,400 meters (17,716 feet), where she acted as expedition leader. After weeks of relentless effort, the team established their Camp 2. Erected below the daunting Black Pyramid, it put them in a promising position for establishing two more high camps that would enable a summit bid in the days that followed. One of the hardest-working members of the team was Rutkiewicz’s former climbing partner Halina Krüger-Syrokomska. Sadly, the night after establishing Camp 2, Krüger-Syrokomska fell unconscious and suddenly died. All the team members were shocked. She had been an extremely valuable team member, a lively, inspiring personality and dear friend. The decision of whether to proceed with the summit bid or pack up and go home weighed heavily on Rutkiewicz as team leader. After a few days of reflection, the women decided that Halina would have wanted them to press on and try for the summit. A small team ultimately went as high as 7,100 meters (23,294 feet) before finally retreating due to uncooperative weather. After sixty-nine days on the mountain, and a tearful goodbye to a cherished friend, the expedition abandoned their efforts.
Before leaving K2, Rutkiewicz and her teammates decided to give Krüger-Syrokomska a proper burial. Recovering bodies is not common practice in high-altitude expeditions; they are often left on the mountain, particularly at altitudes above 8,000 meters (26,247 feet), where retrieval can mean risking one’s own life. Other expedition members from neighboring peaks, including famous climbers Jerzy Kukuczka and Reinhold Messner, convened at K2 basecamp and joined the efforts to bring Halina down off the Abruzzi Spur so that she could finally be put to rest at the Gilkey Memorial.
Rutkiewicz was not yet prepared to give up on K2, but she needed time to let her leg heal properly. So, it wasn’t until 1984 that she returned to the peak—with three other women climbers, including Anna Czerwinska and Krystyna Palmowska from the 1982 attempt. Poor weather hampered the expedition yet again, leaving the team no choice but to settle for reaching Camp 3 at 7,400 meters (24,278 feet). Still, K2 would not relent.
Rutkiewicz went on two further expeditions before her final attempt on K2 in 1986. First, she ascended Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America. Next, she summited Nanga Parbat in Pakistan and, on the same trip, attempted an ascent of Broad Peak. Both these expeditions faced challenges involving conflicting personalities. After the trip, several climbers decided that they would never climb with Rutkiewicz again, claiming her hardheadedness and intense competitiveness were too much.
In 1986, there were a number of other expeditions planned for K2, several of which had their sights set on putting the first woman on its summit. Rutkiewicz was snubbed by former climbing partners and conspicuously not invited to join a large national Polish team, so she was forced to find companions elsewhere.
She turned to French climbers Maurice and Liliane Barrard. They had high-altitude experience and Liliane had recently become the first woman on Nanga Parbat. They were planning to attempt K2 that spring in alpine style—moving lighter and faster than larger expeditions, establishing smaller camps only as needed and stashing supplies along the way rather than spending weeks establishing camps in set locations on the Abruzzi Spur. Rutkiewicz joined their expedition, along with journalist Michel Parmentier. The two butted heads almost from the outset when it was decided that they would be partners, while Liliane and Maurice would be the second rope team. Rutkiewicz refused to share a tent with Parmentier on the lower parts of the ridge, which meant additional weight for her to carry on the climb. Parmentier had a tendency to abandon his teammates and proceed on his own, increasing the risk for himself and others.
All differences aside, the small team managed to summit K2 in a six-day push from basecamp and Rutkiewicz became the first woman to stand on top of the second highest peak in the world. The group had moved slowly but steadily on their ascent, making the climb without the use of supplemental oxygen, and she had beaten the Barrards and Parmentier to the summit. They finally arrived an hour after her and spent some time enjoying the view.
After almost two hours on the summit, Rutkiewicz became bitterly cold and realized she had to start descending, so she moved ahead of her companions and waited for them at 8,300 meters (27,230 feet) at a flat spot where they had bivouacked the night before. When Maurice arrived, looking haggard and exhausted, he declared they would go no further that day. Rutkiewicz reluctantly agreed to spend the night, knowing that staying so high would affect their bodies even more than the physical effort of descending lower. The four climbers spent a horribly uncomfortable night crammed into a two-person tent.
It was on the technical descent the next day that Rutkiewicz witnessed Parmentier tumbling down the Bottleneck. The incident highlighted just how exhausted they all were, and the team couldn’t afford to make mistakes. They were gambling with their lives. Rutkiewicz continued downwards, marking each step carefully until she finally rejoined Parmentier at 7,700 meters (25,262 feet) on a feature called the Shoulder. They rested and prepared some meltwater in their tiny tent.
Wanda Rutkiewicz at the top of Everest, May 16, 1978. Photo from the Wanda Rutkiewicz archive
By the time they had fired up their small stove, the Barrards had not yet arrived. A storm was moving in and the next morning, the couple were still nowhere in sight. Rutkiewicz and Parmentier now faced the difficult choice of whether to go back up—in their fatigued state—and try to locate the French climbers, or to descend to a lower camp for their own safety. Parmentier decided he would wait for the Barrards but convinced Rutkiewicz to descend alone.
Climbers from other expeditions had spent the night nearby, at 7,700 meters (25,262 feet), and had also decided to climb down from the Shoulder because of the storm. Rutkiewicz managed to stick with them for a while, but visibility was poor and she eventually lost their tracks in the snow. Her world became an indistinguishable palette of white. Straining to see features that would confirm she was on the correct route, she miraculously spotted two ski poles that must have been left for her by the climbers ahead. They sat at the top of the fixed ropes that would guide her safely all the way down the ridge.
Rutkiewicz clipped herself to the fixed lines and continued descending, bringing the ski poles with her. Sometime over the course of the next few hours, she realized her mistake. The poles weren’t left for her specifically. They marked the top of the fixed lines so that every climber on the route would be able to easily find them while descending. She was mortified that this would put Parmentier and the Barrards in further jeopardy, but she had no choice but to continue. Going back up was suicide.
Rutkiewicz made it to Camp 2 that night and eventually, after a grueling effort, arrived at Advanced Base Camp. During the descent, she had lost her gloves. She had found a replacement pair at one of the camps, but her hands were badly frostbitten and she needed medical attention. When the other expedition members saw her approaching, they were both amazed and delighted. Some had started to climb up to search for her. Others had assumed she was dead.
In the days that followed, Parmentier returned to basecamp but the Barrards did not. The storm continued to rage and all hope was lost for those who had spent several nights in higher camps. Maurice and Liliane became numbers in the gruesome statistics—two of the thirteen people who died on the peak that year, many of them Rutkiewicz’s friends. It was one of the worst seasons in the mountain’s history.
Rutkiewicz’s achievement was overshadowed by tragedy, and it wasn’t until years later that she could truly celebrate her climb. As she said, “Sorrow at the death of so many friends far outweighed any triumph I might have felt.”