Wanda Rutkiewicz was born into a Polish family in Plungė, Lithuania. After World War II, her family chose to leave for Poland, settling in Wrocław in southwestern Poland's Recovered Territories, where she graduated from Wroclaw University of Technology as an electrical engineer. Wanda Rutkiewicz rode a Junak, the heaviest Polish motorcycle, which indirectly contributed to her interest in climbing. One summer's day in 1961 it ran out of fuel. She started waving to people passing on the road to seek their assistance; a motorcyclist who stopped to help was travelling with a colleague, Bogdan Jankowski, who had been climbing for two years. This chance meeting resulted in them climbing together near Janowice Wielkie in the Falcon Mountains.
Climbing career
Her first major expedition was to the Pamir Mountains with Andrzej Zawada, which she found unpleasant due to her difficult relationships with the male climbers. After returning she began to lead her own expeditions, including a number of all-female ones, and became known for her blunt leadership style. On 16 October 1978, she became the first Pole, the third woman, and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. In 1986 she became the first woman to successfully climb K2, which she did without supplemental oxygen, as part of a small expedition led by Lilliane and Maurice Barrard. Her triumph was marred when both the Barrards died during the descent, becoming two of 13 climbers to die on K2 that summer. Rutkiewicz's goal was to become the first woman to reach the summits of all 14 of the eight-thousanders. During her climbing career she successfully climbed the following mountains:
While climbing Kangchenjunga, 49-year-old Rutkiewicz was last seen alive by Mexican climber Carlos Carsolio. She was sheltering at high altitude on the north-west face, during her attempted ascent of what would have been her ninth eight-thousander. Rutkiewicz was physically weakened and decided against descending. Carsolio said he didn't have the mental strength to convince her to descend because he was weakened as well. It was thought that her body had been found on the south-west face of the mountain in 1995 by Fausto de Stefani, Marco Galezzi and Silvio Mondinelli, suggesting that she had climbed up the north-west ridge to a point very close to the summit before falling down the south-west side. However, more detailed analysis of the findings by the Italian climbers, such as colour of clothing and presence of Bulgarian-made tablets with the body, indicate that most likely it was the body of Bulgarian climber Yordanka Dimitrova, who was killed by an avalanche on the south-west face of Kangchenjunga in October 1994. It is not known if Rutkiewicz reached the summit of Kangchenjunga. If she did so, she would have been the first woman to reach the top of the world's three highest mountains. Rutkiewicz's body has still not been found.
