Freedom Climbers tells the story of Poland's truly remarkable mountaineers who dominated Himalayan climbing during the period between the end of World War II and the start of the new millennium. The emphasis here is on their
"golden age" in the 1980s and 1990s when, despite the economic and social baggage of their struggling country, Polish
climbers were the first to tackle the world's highest mountains during winter, including the first winter ascents on seven
of the world's fourteen 8000-meter peaks: Everest, Manaslu, Dhaulagiri, Cho Oyu, Kanchenjunga, Annapurna, and
Lhotse. Such successes, however, came at a serious cost: 80 percent of Poland's finest high-altitude climbers died on
the high mountains during the same period they were pursuing these first ascents.