«DI wanted us to say so high and we did it on the same day ». These are the words that Pope John Paul II addresses to a Polish compatriot, the day they meet in person. His name is Wanda Rutkiewicz. For a curious coincidence, on October 16, 1978, he became Pontiff and She has reached the top of Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Wanda is the third woman to succeed, After the Japanese Junko Tabei and the Chinese Tibetan Phanthog, both climbed in 1975. And he is also the first European mountaineer. At the top he arrives on his own, causing envy and muggni among the Polish mountaineers, beaten by a woman and injured in pride. If mountaineering is also a predominantly male sport today, in those years Women were a rarity and in a Machist environment they were considered Serie B climbers, slow and emotional. Wanda has claimed the right to be considered on an equal footing by her colleagues.
Its history is reconstructed in the documentary The last shipment by Eliza Kubarska, director and mountaineer, promoted by the Italian Alpine Club. A work that through the images and voice of Wanda makes us know the dreams, doubts, the will of a warrior who has sacrificed everything for the mountain. Also his life.
Women in history: Wanda Rutkiewicz, the mountaineer who challenged the males
Wanda was born in 1943 in Plungé, Lithuania. Her mother had married a young Polish engineer, Zbigniew Blaszkiewicz, who fled when the Nazis had invaded his country. In 1946, the parents decided to move to Poland, where two years after the family he is hit by a serious mourning that will mark Wanda’s childhood: the brother Jurek is torn to torn by a minar while playing. Who knows, maybe To replace the firstborn male in the heart of the father, the girl will always be the first of the class, study and sports.
He dedicates himself to volleyball with commitment, to the point of entering the national team, and at the University of Wroclaw graduated in Engineeringthen moving to Warsaw to work at the Institute of Mathematical Machines, the first computers. These are the years in which his love for the mountain blossoms. At 19 he completed his first mountaineering course. In the memories of a partner, Wanda was always athletically prepared, dominated her fears with determination and ambition, aspired to get more and more.
Wanda Rutkiewicz’s passion for mountaineering, from the Polish mountains to the Lenin peak
The first peaks with which the Polish mountains are ventured, then the Eiger, the Matterhorn and the Mont Blanc, and in 1970 the Ibn Sina peak on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tagikistan, in the communist era known as Picco Lenin, The first seven thousand climbed by the Polish mountaineer. Wanda is 27 years old and before leaving he married a mathematician, Wojciech Rutkiewicz, of which he will keep the surname even after the divorce. Has an interesting job, He met love but his heart beats stronger for the peaks. Wojciech, on the other hand, does not share his passion. In the long run, the separation is inevitable.
A demanding expedition like the one in Asia, where she was the only woman, highlights the first friction between Wanda and adventure companions. The young woman has a strong character, is courageous and demands the maximum from itself. He is a champion, but he is a woman. AND To men, companions too similar to them do not inspire sympathy. “Independent women destabilize their partners,” says the mountaineer in the documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3xuheuqyg
The first expedition of women alone and Everest (alone)
Wanda then tries the path of collaboration between women: In 1978, he organized an expedition with some climbers on the huge northern wall of the Matterhorn, in winter. It is a success. For the first time the mountaineers manage to match a male record. This company will not be the only one to the female, but Wanda’s gaze is always turned towards the roof of the world.
In 1975 he had already conquered Gasherbrum III (7952 m), located between China and Pakistan, and in the wake of his successes in 1978 his great opportunity arrives: he comes involved in a German expedition to Everest. Boicotta again from his male companions, at the top he arrives alone. It is the consecration: on the return to Poland he writes books, he goes on the radio and on television.
Even if you return home, however, mountaineering companies are always at high risk of accident. In 1981, during a period of training on the Caucasus, Wanda is overwhelmed by a climber during the descent from Mount Elbrus. The verdict: broken femur. He gets caught in Innsbruck, where the spark clings with a doctor Austrian who is taking care of her and a few months later they get married. But the script repeats himself: as soon as he is better, Wanda returns to the mountains.
Objective, K2
The goal this time is K2, what she herself calls “the most difficult peak and which I am most proud”. In 1982, a group of 12 mountaineersincluding Rutkiewicz himself padded with painkillers, part. But The death of a partner and the bad weather push her to go back. Two years later they are reserved, again without success. The conquests of Aconcagua (1985) and Nanga Parbat (1985), prelude to Triumph of 23 June 1986, when Wanda alone and without oxygen arrives at the top of the K2 from which it miraculously descends, in the midst of a snow storm. His friends – the French mountaineers Liliane and Maurice Barrard – climbed after her will not make it.
The right man was not an mountaineer
From 1987 to 1991, Wanda Rutkiewicz never stops. Freme to conquer the most coveted eight thousand. Shishapangma, Gasherbrum II, Gasherbrum I, Cho Oyu all appear on his medal. Life seems to have taken the right direction. Starting from the eighties, He leaves his profession as an engineer to live only of mountaineering.
The second marriage has been archived, around 1989 Wanda finally meets the right man. His name is Kurt Lyncke, he is a German doctor, supports her and does not claim to change it. Wanda comes to dream of having a son with him. Kurt, though, He is not an mountaineer. The decision to follow Wanda in the expedition to Broad Peak’s summit in 1990 proves fatal: the man, fatigued, He dies from a fall.
Wanda Rutkiewicz (1943-1992) in front of K2, in 1982. After several attempts, the Polish climber arrived at the top, alone and without oxygen, in 1986
The caravan of dreams and male hostility
For Wanda Rutkiewicz it is a very hard blow, from which he finds the strength to recover by creating The “La Carovana dei Dreams” project: become the first woman to climb all 14 eight thousand of the world. The next step is The Annapurna, who faces with a expedition guided by the well -known mountaineer Krzystof Wielicki. “We arrived as friends here, we separated like wolves, without mercy,” says Wanda.
The script repeats itself: men go up together, Wanda alone. AND Someone doubts that he has ever arrived at the top. The Polish association of mountaineering opens an investigation, in the end confirms Wanda’s rise. But the doubt winds and poisons relationships.
In 1992, the Polish mountaineer points to his ninth eight thousand. The Kangchenjunga, The third highest mountain in the world is for the Buddhists a sacred peak, which is forbidden to climb. The feat begins badly: four groups of the group gives up, attempts Wanda and the Mexican Carlos Carsolio. The Polish, who is now 49 years old, is slower, Carlos does not wait for it and arrives first at the top. He is the last person to see her alive on May 12, 1992, in a bivouac at an altitude of 8200 meters.
The mystery about his disappearance, at the top of the Kangchenjunga
If it were alive, what would be 82 years old what happened in Wanda today? Has it reached the top? Did you die in the descent? The mystery remains dense.
In 1995, an Italian expedition to the Kangchenjunga found the remains of a woman. The photos take and they bury the body in a crevasse. “It’s Rutkiewicz,” they say. A subsequent analysis of the finds, however, hypothesizes that it is a Bulgarian mountaineer, who disappeared in 1994.
Reinhold Messner, who estimated Wanda, hypothesizes in the documentary that he is not dead. “If he had survived the descent on the south side, he could have easily entered Tibet.” Disappointed by life, perhaps he found the peace of the soul in a convent as a Buddhist nun, making his tracks lose. If it were true, today Wanda would be 82 years old. Or more likely that mountain he loved so much has become his last home. As for her dream, that of being the first woman to climb the 14 eight thousand, the Spanish mountaineer Edrne Pasaban made it in 2010.