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Piotr
Pustelnik Last Update
5/2003
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Piotr
Pustelnik was born on July 12, 1951 in Lodz (Poland).
Nothing had prefigured his great climbing career until
he turned 18 in 1969. Then he went of his first
mountain hike and soon understood mountains were the
best kind of landscape for him. Later, during one of
his stays in the Tatras, he saw some climbers
descending a mountain, accompanied by the clanging of
their gear. He immediately felt a desire to be like
them.
The
beginnings were not easy, although the first steps
were taken almost at once. Together with his cousin,
he decided to enroll in a climbing course with the
Mountaineering Club in Lodz. After numerous
theoretical classes, practical assessment followed in
the rocks of Podlesice. He failed and was kicked out
of the course. He was only 22 then. It did not impair his
determination though and he started to practice on
his own with a couple of friends. He had done quite a
lot of climbing in the Tatras before he finally
decided to "legalize" his activity, and
passed the climbing exam (on the second attempt).
Several months later he became an instructor of
alpinism.
In
1980 he first went abroad, to the Alps. The trip
organized by the Academic Mountain Club in Lodz turned
out successful, enabling Piotr to
do a few major routes, including the eastern face of
Mt Blanc.
After
that, a period of family life and writing a doctoral
thesis followed, marking a break in his active
climbing until 1985. Then he went to Cashmere, and a
year later he attempted to climb Pinnacle (6950 m),
which he did not summit due to altitude problems. In
1989 he climbed Korzhenevskoy Peak in the Pamir. Then
he could go only higher.
His
debut in the Karakoram came in 1990, on an expedition
with Wanda Rutkiewicz, and brought immediate success -
he summited Gasherbrum II (8035 m) in a solo climb.
The next 8000-ers followed smoothly in the next
decade:
| Gasherbrum
II (8035 m) |
19
July 1990 |
| Nanga
Parbat (8125 m) |
12
July 1992 |
| Cho
Oyu (8201 m) |
24
September 1993 |
| Shishapangma
(8027 m) |
6
October 1993 |
| Dhaulagiri
(8167 m) |
26
September 1994 |
| Mount
Everest (8848 m) |
12
May 1995 |
| K2
(8611 m) |
14
July 1996 |
| Gasherbrum
I (8068 m) |
15
July 1997 |
| Gasherbrum
II (8035 m) |
21
July 1997 |
| Lhotse
(8501 m) |
15
May 2000 |
|
Kangchenjunga |
15
May 2001 |
|
Makalu |
May
2002 |
|
Manaslu |
17th of May |
Piotr
Pustelnik is a researcher at the Faculty of Processing
Engineering and Environment Protection, Technical
University of Lodz. He does a lot of climbing in
the mountains all over the world. Currently, he is
involved in a project of 'Three Crowns", aiming
to reach the 14 highest peaks of the Himalayas, next
to the highest and the second highest peaks of all the
Continents. Written
by Waldek Brygier
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