Bogley

[Iceaxe]

Polish Mountain Expedition Film Discovered after 69 Years
03.03.2008

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A film shot during the Polish expedition into the Himalayas in 1939 has been discovered in the archives of the British Film Institute in London.
Michal Kubicki has the details.

The aim of the expedition was Nanda Devi East in India, a peak of 7434 metres. Two climbers – Jakub Bujak and Janusz Klarner – reached the summit. Their two team mates - Adam Karpinski and Stefan Bernadzikiewicz – died in an avalanche. The discovery of the film in the British Film Institute is the fruit of the painstaking research by Anna T. Pietraszek, a mountain climber, filmmaker and historian, who was assisted by Anna Naszynska, a London-based film producer.

‘The film is in excellent condition. It was shot on 35 mm and it’s a positive, so the pictures are fantastic in terms of the contrast and depth. There is nothing from the top because the climber who was a filmmaker on that expedition didn’t make it to the top. He died in the avalanche and the film was rescued from the avalanche. There are lots of wonderful panoramic shots of the mountain and around. You can see three climbers. You don’t see the filmmaker, Bernadzikiewicz; obviously he was behind the camera.’

The events following the Polish expedition were extremely dramatic. On their way back to Poland, during a stopover in Bombay, Bujak and Klarner learnt about the outbreak of World War II. The former reached Poland, fought in the 1944 Warsaw Rising and died in 1949 in unexplained circumstances. Bujak went to Palestine and from there to London where he worked as an aviation engineer for the British arms industry. In 1945 he died, also in unexplained circumstances.

Anna T. Pietraszek and Anna Naszynska are planning to make a documentary about the expedition and its follow-up.

‘We want to make a film about the expedition and try to find out what happened to the two climbers. These wonderful people should be taught about in history books and I met so many people who were surprised that we got heroes like that and nobody heard of them. It’s not only a Polish story. It’s a story which will be very interesting for other people, especially that it was the first ascent of Nada Devi and the beginning of the race to Mount Everest. The Poles joined that race and they were very good. The film should be made in co-production with some British producer and that’s what I’d like to achieve.’

The filmmakers hope to gain access to the information that could shed some light on the mysterious circumstances of the deaths of Jakub Bujak and Janusz Klarner after the war.

Polish Radio Online


Nanda Devi

[Brian in SLC]

Iceaxe wrote: ‘We want to make a film about the expedition and try to find out what happened to the two climbers. These wonderful people should be taught about in history books and I met so many people who were surprised that we got heroes like that and nobody heard of them. It’s not only a Polish story. It’s a story which will be very interesting for other people, especially that it was the first ascent of Nada Devi and the beginning of the race to Mount Everest.’

Wow, pretty cool. That's going to be great to see.

Technically, and its mentioned earlier in the article, its not about the FA of Nanda Devi, but, Nanda Devi East. Also note that Tenzing (of the Everest FA note) said that peak was his most difficult climb.

You gotta give credit to the fellers in 1936, which, was a huge deal in the history of climbing in the Himalaya.

Info from wiki, below.

What's pretty cool is that the American from that expedition is still around: Charles Houston. His book, Brotherhood of the Rope, is super and, a bonus is the DVD with film from K2. Amazing.

Pete's book is pretty neat. He was at the Ogden Climb-Fest last spring and showed slides of the area and their trip there. What's amazing is some of those guys are still around, and, there are stories...

Peter Takeda, An Eye at the Top of the World: The Terrifying Legacy of the Cold War's Most Daring C.I.A. Operation

Anyhoo, Nanda Devi has quite the history. See also Roskelley's book.

-Brian in SLC

From wiki:

When the mountain was later climbed in 1936 by a British-American expedition, it became the highest peak climbed by man until the 1950 ascent of Annapurna, 8,091 metres (26,545 ft). (However higher non-summit elevations had already been reached by the British on Mount Everest in the 1920s.) It also involved steeper and more sustained terrain than had been previously attempted at such a high altitude.[4] The expedition climbed the south ridge, also known as the Coxcomb Ridge, which leads relatively directly to the main summit.[3] The summit pair were H.W. Tilman and Noel Odell; Charles Houston was to be in place of Tilman, but he contracted severe food poisoning. Noted mountaineer and mountain writer H. Adams Carter was also on the expedition, which was notable for its small scale and lightweight ethic: it included only seven climbers, and used no fixed ropes, nor any Sherpa support above 6,200 m (20,300 ft). Eric Shipton, who was not involved in the climb itself, called it "the finest mountaineering achievement ever performed in the Himalaya."[4]

After abortive attempts by Indian expeditions in 1957 and 1961, the second ascent of Nanda Devi was accomplished by an Indian team led by N. Kumar in 1964, following the Coxcomb route.

Attempts were made from 1965 to 1968 by the CIA to place a plutonium-powered listening device high on Nanda Devi, to monitor possible Chinese nuclear activity in Tibet, but the device was lost in an avalanche.[3] (Recent reports indicate that radiation traces from this device have been discovered in sediment below the mountain.[7]) The actual data is not conclusive, however, but the absence of Pu-238 (the isotope that powered the device) in the sample proves that any Pu present could not have come from the device. As a result of this activity, the Sanctuary was closed to climbing by foreign expeditions during much of the 1960s, and was not re-opened until 1974.

A difficult new route, the northwest buttress, was climbed by a thirteen-person team in 1976. Three Americans, John Roskelley, Jim States and Lou Reichardt, summitted on September 1. The expedition was co-led by Louis Reichardt, H. Adams Carter (who was on the 1936 climb) and Willi Unsoeld, who climbed the West Ridge of Everest in 1963. Unsoeld's daughter, Nanda Devi Unsoeld, who was named after the peak, died on this expedition.[8][9] In 1981, the first women to stand on the summit were part of an Indian led expedition.

[edit] Nanda Devi East

Nanda Devi East was first climbed in 1939 by a four-member Polish expedition led by Adam Karpinski. They climbed the south ridge, from Longstaff Col; this is still the standard route on the peak. The summit party were J. Klarner and J. Bujak.[3] Karpinski and Stefan Bernardzikiewicz died later in an attempt on Trishuli.

The first attempt to traverse the ridge between the main summit and Nanda Devi East resulted in the death of two members of a French expedition in 1951. Team leader Roger Duplat and Gilbert Vignes disappeared on the ridge somewhere below the main summit.[3] Tenzing Norgay was in a support team on this expedition; he and Louis Dubost climbed Nanda Devi East to look for the missing pair. Some years later Tenzing was asked what was the most difficult climb he ever did, expecting him to say Mount Everest; he surprised his interlocutors by saying Nanda Devi East.

The standard approach to the south ridge route, from the Milam Valley to the east, passes through Lawan Glacier via Lawan Gad and thence to Longstaff Col. The trek to base camp goes through the villages of Munsiyari, Lilam, Bogudiar, Martoli, Nasanpatti, and Bhadeligwar. An alternate route climbs the southwest face, from a base camp inside the Sanctuary.

[edit] Partial timeline

• 1934: First entry into the inner Sanctuary by Eric Shipton and H.W. Tilman
• 1936: The first ascent of Nanda Devi by Odell and Tilman.
• 1939: First ascent of Nanda Devi East by Klarner, Bujak.