Lhotse | 1974 W Face

A Poland expedition to Lhotse in 1974 via W Face, led by Andrzej Zawada. Summit reached on 25th December 1974. 17 members recorded.

Expedition Details

Field Value
ID 2309
Imported 2026-03-06 18:04:49.359634
Expedition ID LHOT74301
Peak ID LHOT
Year 1974
Season 3
Host Country 1
Route 1 W Face
Route 2 -
Route 3 -
Route 4 -
Nationality Poland
Leaders Andrzej Zawada
Sponsor Polish Himalaya Expedition Lhotse 1974
Success 1 False
Success 2 False
Success 3 False
Success 4 False
Ascent 1 -
Ascent 2 -
Ascent 3 -
Ascent 4 -
Claimed False
Disputed False
Countries -
Approach Khumbu Valley
Basecamp Date 1974-10-21
Summit Date 1974-12-25
Summit Time -
Summit Days 65
Total Days 76
Termination Date 1975-01-05
Termination Reason 4
Termination Notes Abandoned at 8250m due to approaching storm
High Point (m) 8250
Traverse False
Ski False
Paraglide False
Camps 4
Fixed Rope (m) 0
Total Members 16
Summit Members 0
Member Deaths 1
Total Hired 7
Summit Hired 0
Hired Deaths 0
No Hired False
O2 Used True
O2 None False
O2 Climb True
O2 Descent False
O2 Sleep True
O2 Medical False
O2 Taken False
O2 Unknown False
Other Summits -
Campsites BC(21/10,5300m),C1(26/10,6050m),C2(01/11,6400m),C3(07/11,7100m),C4A(29/11,7600m),C4B(11/12,7800m),xxx(25/12,8250m)
Route Notes N Dyhrenfurth - 17 Dec 74 C4 would be below couloir which starts at 8000m. Camp altitudes for C3 and transit camp about 200m too high. Correct that Poles are first to be in West Cwm in Dec. Dyhrenfurth leaves 2 Dec. Zawada - 7 Jan 75 Dec weather much better then Nov. Needed 2 more weeks only to reach summit. Icefall - easy in Oct, Nov bad, and worse and worse in Dec: Nov - 1-1/2 hours to cross Dec - 5 hours to cross Crevasses getting bigger and seracs falling. Winds dropped notably in Dec, Jan weather was very fine. Sure in Dec and Jan much better for climbing then Sept and Nov. Dr Stryczynski letter ex-BC - 1 Jan 75 30 Dec to C1 and C2 went 9 members to carry down more equipment and maybe few would go up to attack summit. But 30 Dec good weather finished. Wind was horrible, so would be attacker had to return and reached BC on 1 Jan. Now preparing return to KTM. 5 Jan caravan to leave BC and 9 Jan arrive Lukla. Stryczynski at BC - 25 Dec 74 24 Dec Zawada and Heinrich in C4 in good weather without wind. Other 2 came to C2. 25 Dec about 10:00 am all in C4 begin climb to top. Weather continued very good, night before at least. -45 degrees C and perhaps colder. Others two Kazimierz and Wojciech to C3 on 25 Dec. MP Khanal - 20 Dec 74 17th Dec Stanislaw Latallo died exhausted descending from C3 during snowing storm. BC - 18 Dec 74 Yesterday afternoon about 14 o'clock our cameraman Stanislaw Latallo age 29 died exhausted descending from C3 to C2 at altitude about 7000m on NW Face of Lhotse. Stanislaw Latallo and two other members had been waiting in C3 two days for improving the weather conditions. Unfortunately on 17 Dec morning the weather was still getting worse and they had decided to descend toward C2 in Western Cwm. During descending the weather conditions were as follows: -26 degrees C and stormy hurricane. As result of being in such a conditions after 2 hours exhausted S. Latallo died. The other two members after few hours reached C2 and sent a tragic message by walkie-talkie to BC. The body of Stanislaw Latallo will be graved in nearest crevasse in North Face of Lhotse. The expedition will be continued. On 11th Dec we have established C4 on altitude 7800m. Two final attacks on the summit of Lhotse were unsuccessful because of strong winds in temperature. MFA - 12 Dec 74 Established C4 7800m today. Murrey Jones - 12 Dec 74 Jones visited BC on 8 Dec. 7th Dec Poles found C1's tents destroyed: 5 torn apart and 1 vanished and returned to BC. 8th Dec Zawada and 3 other Poles left BC to go through to C2 and C3. Morale remarkably high under extremely rugged conditions at BC. Say have food for one month. Letter from BC - 4 Dec 74 Many attempts for the last 3 weeks to proceed above C3 have proved unsuccessful becauses of very stormy winds which by the way have destroyed parts of the camp instalments like tents. Lately C3 specially suffered heavy destruction making its rebuilding necessary. Also the route through Icefall which was alreay opened by means of bridges and fixed ropes has been for a good part destroyed because of the collapsing of the seracs. Nov 15 an accident occured which easily could have been fatal: of two Sherpas climbing up the Ice-fall, transporting material for C1; one slipped and fell into deep crevasse and hereby pulling the other Sherpa down. The later fortunately fell into another crevasse, so that both men remained hung up in balance until their shouts for help attracted Polish climbers one hour later. Although there was no loss of life, both men are unable for a couple of weeks, one having the phalanges of the hands frozen and the other one the left leg very badly hurt. Our expedition taking place during the winter months, we are faced with problems unknown to the former expeditions in such a great extent, like extreme temperatures, i.e. - 32 degrees C night temperature in C3, and very strong and long-lasting winds in high altitudes, as mentioned above. Has throat disease, coming to KTM on foot with 16; arrived 18-20 Dec (left Namche 8th Dec); come slowly as are making photos. MP Khanal, MFA - 2 Dec 74 LO reports expedition on 25th Nov made route up to 7500m, but because of strong wind had to return to BC, but are still trying to climb; have not yet abandoned attempt. MP Khanal - 17 Nov 74 15th Nov 2 Sherpas 5550m to BC from C1 fell into crevasse 12m deep at 12:00 hrs and rescued at 13:00 hrs. One received minor frostbite in finger and other uninjured. Returned to BC 19:00 hrs - Chowang Rinzi Sherpa and Norbu Jangbu Sherpa. Andrzej Zawada - 5 Nov 74 (letter) It was forunate for us that our advance party manged to get to Lukla without delay and we were thus able to establish our initial BC on October 21st. The second party arrived on Oct 27th and our camp now consists of 15 tents and 7500 kgs of equipment. Two days after the advance party established camp the first teams began to look for a route through icefall. C1 was established on Oct 26th at an altitude of 6050m just above the icefall. On Nov 1st we set up C2 (two) beneath the SW Face of Everest at 6400m. Up to Nov 1st the weather had been good, but from then it began to worsen. Strong winds began to make work in the Western Cwm impossible. Powder ice and snow is being whipped up from the surface of the cwm reducing visibility this morning (Nov 4th) to only two meters. In order not to be delayed by these poor conditions we shall use this time to move loads up the Icefall from BC to C1. Zawada, et al - 3 Oct 74 Works as photographer not as doctor. Okopinska (woman) does a little climbing, may go through icefall. All members are Polish. 7 Sherpas including 1 sirdar. 6 high camps; 1st 5 as usual on Everest. Zawada & Rusiecki - 20 Sept 74 Swiss 1956 route via South Col. Probably highest and couloir in ascent. May attempt traverse to Lhotse Shar 8426m via unclimbed intermediate peaks and return to Lhotse, or maybe direct via ridge. Trucks maybe in Pakistan; were in Tblise 9 Sept.
Accidents Latallo died of exhaustion while descending from C3 in a strong blizzard
Achievement -
Agency -
Commercial Route -
Standard Route True
Primary Route False
Primary Member False
Primary Reference -
Primary ID -
Checksum 2445191
Year 1974
Summit Success False
O2 Summary Used
Route (lowercase) w face

Members

17 recorded members.

Name Sex Year of Birth Citizenship Status Residence Occupation
Anna Okopinska F 1948 Poland Climber Warsaw, Poland Physicist Details Other expeditions
Andrzej Zawada M 1928 Poland Leader Warsaw, Poland Geophysicist Details Other expeditions
Zygmunt Andrzej (Zyga) Heinrich M 1937 Poland Climber Krakow, Poland Civil engineer Details Other expeditions
Bogdan Jankowski M 1938 Poland Climber Wroclaw, Poland Electronics engineer Details Other expeditions
Piotr Jasinski M - Poland Climber Krakow, Poland Student Details Other expeditions
Jan Koisar M 1937 Poland Exp Doctor Katowice, Poland Physician Details Other expeditions
Marek Kowalczyk M - Poland Climber Krakow, Poland Student Details Other expeditions
Wojciech (Voytek) Kurtyka M 1947 Poland Climber Krakow, Poland Student Details Other expeditions
Stanislaw Latallo M 1945 Poland Film Team Warsaw, Poland Cameraman Details Other expeditions
Tadeusz Piotrowski M 1940 Poland Climber Szczecin, Poland Economist Details Other expeditions
Kazimierz Rusiecki M 1941 Poland Exp Secretary Krakow, Poland Surveyor Details Other expeditions
Jan Stryczynski M - Poland Climber Poznan, Poland Physician Details Other expeditions
Jerzy Surdel M - Poland Film Director Krakow, Poland Television film director Details Other expeditions
Ryszard Szafirski M 1937 Poland Climber Zakopane, Poland Cameraman Details Other expeditions
Wojciech Tedziagolski M - Poland Film Team Warsaw, Poland Film sound operator Details Other expeditions
Miroslaw Wisniewski M - Poland Exp Driver Warsaw, Poland Physician (does not practice medicine) & photographer Details Other expeditions
Pemba Nurbu/Norbu Sherpa M 1949 Nepal Sirdar Namche Bazar, Khumbu - Details Other expeditions

References

7 recorded references.

Expedition ID Journal Author Title Publisher Citation Yak 94
LHOT74301 AAJ Cheney, Michael J. - - 49:197 (1975) -
LHOT74301 AJ Zawada, Andrzej Winter At 8250 Metres - 82:28-35 (1977) -
LHOT74301 MM - - - 42:10 (Mar 1975) -
LHOT74301 MM Dyhrenfurth, G. O. & Dyhrenfurth, Norman Lhotse - 66:38-42 (Mar 1979) -
LHOT74301 - - http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12197519701/Asia-Nepal-Lhotse-Attempt - - -
LHOT74301 - - https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1977_files/AJ%201977%2028-35%20Zawada%20Lhotse.pdf - - -
LHOT74301 - Piotrowska, Danuta Lhotse 1974, In Memoriam Taduesz Piotrowski Wydawnictwo Stapis, Katowice - -