2024-02-13 12:50:45
Together with Zoltán Demján, they became the first Czechoslovaks to climb the highest mountain in the world, but unlike his partner, Jozef Psotka did not return from the expedition. He tragically died while descending from the highest mountain in the world. He would have celebrated his ninetieth birthday today.
The highest mountain in the world was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norkej in May 1953.
Czechoslovak climbers equaled them 31 years later. On October 15, 1984, Zoltán Demján and Jozef Psotka, accompanied by the famous Sherpa Ang Rita, later known as the Snow Leopard, made history.
But the breakthrough success was overshadowed by Psotko’s death.
Even the Czechoslovak scientific-mountaineering expedition to Everest was not born easily, and until the last moments it was not even known whether it would really take place.
Associate professor František Kele, mountaineer and naturalist, was appointed its leader. In addition to him, 13 Slovak and two Czech mountaineers took part, the other five members of the expedition had, for example, medical or filming tasks.
The expedition set up base camp after a fourteen-day march on September 6, 1984, at an altitude of 5,400 meters.
Through other high-altitude camps, the climbers worked their way up to 8,300 meters above sea level, where they built a small tent for the summit team.
This was supposed to reach the destination by the hitherto unclimbed route of the southern pillar, which the Polish expedition had already attempted.
In 1980, the Poles had to deviate to the normal southern route, which Hillary and Norkej once followed, due to a snowstorm. However, they were still recognized as the first ascent and the route was called the Polish route.
As the first Czechoslovak expedition, Ján Porvazník was supposed to attempt to climb the 8,848 meter high “roof of the world”. But he had problems with his eyes – his retinal vessels burst.
Jozef Just and Sherpa Ang Phurb went up instead of him. They did not succeed, they were driven back by a strong gale.
Next in line were Jozef Psotka and Zoltán Demján, experienced and well-acclimatized climbers, and good friends despite the age difference of 21 years.
They left the base camp on October 11, two days later they arrived at the third camp, where they were caught up by Sherpa Ang Rita after an admirable performance.
On the 14th, they reached a height of 8,300 meters. They found the tent, food, and oxygen cylinders that Just and Ang Phurb had left there after their attempt.
But there was not enough room in the tent, so they just took a nap and set off for the summit in the morning. The final ascent took them eight hours.
At 3:15 p.m. on October 15, 1984, the Czechoslovak flag flew on top of the world for the first time in history. Demján, Psotka and Ang Rita were the first to complete the so-called Polish journey through the southern pillar.
Before them, only 16 people reached the top of Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen, and none of them was older than fifty-year-old Psotka.
Ang Rita returned to the summit a year later, having climbed it for the first time on May 7, 1983 with an American expedition.
To return, the trio chose the southern saddle route, which is longer, but leads through easier terrain. However, a hurricane caught them and they became separated in the dark.
An exhausted Demján arrived at the second camp first, and only in the morning did Ang Rita arrive with the news that a crisis had hit Psotka and he refused to go any further.
Efforts to rescue him were complicated by the weather. The next day, Psotko’s dead body was found to the right of the descent route; the climber was buried on the spot.
Ironically, it was found by Just, whose fate was not very different from Psotkov’s in the end. He died while descending after successfully conquering Everest four years later.
In the same year, Demján also conquered Lhoce Šar (8,383 meters), and his ascent to Dhaulágiri (8,167 meters) two years later was awarded as the most valuable Himalayan ascent of the year.
Sherpa Ang Rita climbed Mount Everest ten times in 13 years, earning the nickname Snow Leopard outside of the world record.
He reached the top every time without the use of additional oxygen, except for the Czechoslovakian expedition, but he always used the so-called normal route from the north or south. He last stood on the top of Everest on May 23, 1996.
In October 1988, another great tragedy of Czechoslovak mountaineers took place on the world’s highest mountain, in which four elite Slovak mountaineers perished, in addition to Justa, Jaroslav Jaško, Peter Božík and Dušan Becík.
Without oxygen equipment, they climbed the eight-thousand-thousand-meter Lhoce and climbed Mount Everest the next day, but were swept away by an avalanche on their way back.
The first Czech on Everest was Leopold Sulovský on May 17, 1991.