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When Krzys Piekarski was told he was going for a gentle hike in the Tatra Mountains of southern Poland, he wasn't phased at all. Why should he be? A few hours in though, and he was reassessing his whole life...

Fifty-five year old Maciej Berbeka is one of the world’s most experienced and accomplished mountain climbers, part of the Polish “winter warrior” contingency who've set numerous firsts in the world as far as climbing the tallest mountains in the most unfavourable conditions are concerned. He’s reached the peak of Mt. Everest and made a failed attempt at K2 that nearly cost him his life.

He's also climbed with Simon Yates, one of the two climbers whose story is told in the astonishing and gut-wrenching documentary Into the Void: a story about what happens when you climb a 21,000 mountain, break your leg falling into a crevasse, and your partner has to cut your rope in order to save his own life. I would admit to digressing, but this is the stuff of mountain climbing. It makes your heart weep and your body shake. Miracles are common.

Berbeka’s father was himself a mountain climber, but was killed on an ascent in the French Alps when Maciej was ten years old; a fact I mention wary of it being exploitative, but one which goes some small distance in helping explain how a man makes death-teasing his profession. When you examine the joy with which mountain climbers approach their summits, the phrase 'death-teasing' begins to make more and less sense simultaneously, like the paradox of those who suffer from severe vertigo and yet can’t help but jump to their deaths.  

But one mystical morning, in Zakopane, Poland, I did not know any of this. Olek, my deceptively turtle-poised uncle, having picked me up from Krakow airport the day before, had fully settled into his duty as the appointed tour guide in what was my official return to the Motherland after twenty four years.

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