Andrzej Marciniak, RIP

A great Polish mountaineer, Andrzej Marciniak has died today in a climbing accident the the Tatras. Andrzej was the only survivor of the tragic 6-person 1989 expedition to the West Ridge of Mount Everest, which took lives of some of the best Polish mountaineers of that time. Andrzej and Eugeniusz Chrobak summitted on May 24, 1989. Three days later, during their descent, the entire party engulfed in a huge avalanche. With exception of Andrzej, the avalanche buried everybody else: Eugeniusz Chrobak, Miroslaw Falco-Dasal, Miroslaw Gardzielewski, Andrzej Heinrich, and Waclaw Otreba. Andrzej managed to dig out his partner Eugeniusz Chrobak who died the following night from his injuries. Injured and snowblind, Andrzej waited alone for 5 days in a tent at Lho La col for the rescue team. Organizing rescue from the Tibetan side was very difficult at that time because of the ongoing events on Tiananmen Square. Some of the details regarding the expedition and rescue can be found here and here

After the tragedy, Andrzej returned to climbing and mountaineering and in 1996, together with Ukrainian climber Wladyslawem Terzeul, established a new route on the north-west ridge of Annapurna. He remained an active climber until the end.

Andrzej was a great guy with a big friendly smile for everyone. He was my first climbing instructor in the Alpine Club (Klub Wysokogorski) in Gdansk, Poland, in 1984. We were learning from him how to climb and belay in the ruins of old post-German bridges Me and my buddy got a lesson from Andrzej on body-rappel from an iron watchtower, using a static sailing rope. By the time I reached the middle of the rappel a considerable part of the back of my pants was gone, and my ass was on fire. I stopped in mid-air and refused to go down any further. After a while of this impass Andrzej casually walked down the stairs to where I was hanging, stood few feet away in front of me, laughed and asked "sooo...why so slow??". I had no choice but to get all the way down. Me and my buddy definitely learned what body rappel was on that day (and I had to buy new pants).

Andrzej, thanks for teaching me how to climb and for giving me a bit of your passion, Rest in Peace.