Wednesday 16 October 2019

Wanda Rutkiewicz-Mountaineer


Celebrating Wanda RutkiewiczThose of you who use Google might have noticed that today's Google Doodle by Kevin Laughlin (see right), celebrates the noted mountaineer Wanda Rutkiewicz, the first Polish woman (in fact, the first Polish person) to summit Mount Everest. Today, October 16th, marks the 41st anniversary of her ascent.  A noted mountaineer, she summited many of the 8000m plus peaks and was the first woman to summit  K2 without supplemental oxygen. An engineer by profession, she went missing during an expedition to Kanchenjunga in 1992 and her body has never been recovered. More on this inspirational woman, who overcame many obstacles in her short life, can be found in her biography Wanda Rutkiewicz-A Caravan of Dreams, written by Gertrude Reinisch. Further info here  https://culture.pl/en/article/death-before-failure-wanda-rutkiewicz-the-golden-age-of-polish-mountaineering