JIRKA ČIHULKA

ALMOST A CENTURY IN THE ROCKS

Jirka grew up in the rock castle of Valdštejn in Czech Paradise, where his parents rented an inn from Count Aehrenthal. This chapter of his life left a deep impression on his heart and memory. During his childhood in the 1940s, he and his brother searched for ways to climb the castle walls to get home, and when the communists took over the castle, he returned in 1955 after military service to at least stay at the local dormitory with his climbing friends.

During World War II, the Chlum brothers and Joska Smítka, who were wanted by the Gestapo, also used to go to Valdštejn to get food supplies left there for them by their family. At the same time, members of the secret police at the time sometimes spent the night there themselves. When Jirka returned from military service, he fell in love with climbing. “In our day, climbing was mainly about the group. Every Saturday and Sunday, we would meet at the dormitory. Some would ride up on a horse-drawn cart with logs that went to the castle.” When tragedy struck under Huascarán in 1970, killing several of his closest climbing companions, climbing ceased to be his main interest.

Jirka and I met this spring for coffee and cake at his home in Turnov. At first, I painted a romantic picture of the past century. And although we reminisced about a number of funny stories from the rocks, our conversation was also interwoven with sadness and bitterness. In short, it was complicated and colorful, as life can be over such a long period of time.

Incidentally, Jirka graduated from high school in 1948, and recently there was a reunion of his graduating class, but only two students attended… During the visit, someone pondered, “Is it better to be the last one there, or not to be there at all?”

CHILDHOOD AT THE CASTLE

You grew up in Valdštejn, so Skalák rocks was just a stone’s throw away. How did you get into climbing?
Before military service, I used to climb the rocks around Valdštejn without a rope. I had ten climbing routes to the castle itself, but I don’t talk about them. Some of them were deadly dangerous. Whenever my brother and I needed to get home at night, we climbed over the walls.

On your way home from a party?
(Jirka nods significantly, author’s note.) I would walk from Rovensko or Malá Skála, and since I had been dancing—in my dress shoes, mind you—I would climb the walls to get home. When I climbed the same route sober, I would think to myself how lucky I was.

You lived through World War II in Valdštejn. At that time, Joska Smítka and the Chlum brothers were hiding from the Gestapo in Skalák. Do you have any memories of Joska?
He used to come to our pub every evening, after the main tourist rush was over. He borrowed my guitar and played it. I might even remember some of the songs. But my memory isn’t what it used to be.

What impression did Joska make on you?
He wasn’t my buddy; he was nine years older than me. We’re talking about 1940, I was around eleven. He was someone I listened to with respect. I remember one afternoon when Joska was at the bar. Some German officer was sitting by the church and whistled at my dad, probably wanting another beer. It must be said that Joska was already wanted at that time! When the German whistled, Joska flew up like a devil and went to fight him. My dad grabbed him and subdued him. My dad did Greco-Roman wrestling, Joska was simply no match for him.

Did the Chlum brothers also visit you at Valdštejn?
They were regular guests. In the evenings, if possible. Their family hid food for them at our place and they would come and pick it up. Other times, they would bring food directly to Skalák to an agreed location.

Why was the Gestapo after Joska and the Chlums?
Look, those three are idealized in literature. They suited the communist regime. It’s true that they ran away from work in Germany – that was the main reason. But from the point of view of Turnov’s civic profile, they weren’t exactly popular. They liked to fight and loaf around – I’m using the terminology of other citizens here. Turnov was a trading town, which meant you were subject to social customs, i.e., you had to behave according to certain rules. For example, you didn’t fight, you went to church on Sundays, you didn’t steal, and so on. They even fought at butchers’ balls. It’s clear that the butchers didn’t like them. From the citizens’ point of view, they were a bit of a nuisance. Although it’s hard for me to describe, I was twelve years old.

Did you feel fear at that time?
During the Protectorate, there was a sign at Valdštejn that read: “Listening to foreign radio is dangerous and punishable by death.” Or: “Political discussions are prohibited in this room.” We kept our mouths shut in front of anyone we didn’t know. You never knew who was who.

It was a dangerous time.
Sometimes we had Gestapo agents staying right in the castle. Our neighbor Jenda Šourek once came and asked my dad if he wanted to join the resistance. My dad replied, “Jenda, don’t play with that. We both have families. I have Germans staying in my apartment.” We knew he belonged to the Gestapo. Once, a German came and said, “I am so-and-so, you won’t be registering me, I am a secretary for the Gestapo and I will be staying here for a while.“

My dad, with his machine-gun German, had a kind of deceptive disguise. German women would ask him, “Sind Sie ein reinrassiger Tscheche?” (Are you a pure-blooded Czech? Ed.) Dad was known to be a man who could do something, who meant something.

So dad refused to join the resistance?
He added that he was not only responsible for himself, but also for his family and other guests, both Czech and German.

Then he got cancer. It was 1947, and I was in sixth or seventh grade. The head physician called my father to the hospital for surgery. On the day of his departure, my mother sent me to accompany him. I walked with him to the parking lot by the gate, and there my dad said to me, “Go home now, Jiříček. There are guests there. Take care of your mom.” He probably already knew he wouldn’t be coming back. So I walked back, and when I reached the gate again, I turned around and ran back to him. It was as if I knew I was seeing him for the last time. I ran all the way to the cemetery and stopped there—I didn’t know which way he had gone. I ran another 200 meters or so, but I couldn’t catch up with him, so I went back home. That’s my last memory of him.

After the operation, my mother and I went to see him in the hospital. We arrived at the appropriate floor, where he was supposed to be lying in the last room on the bed on the right, and as soon as we entered the long corridor, all the nurses and nurses who saw us disappeared to the left or right. We sensed that something was wrong. My mother took out a handkerchief and dried her tears. I ran ahead to his room, but the bed was empty. Only then did a nurse take us to the autopsy room. That was the last time I saw him. My mother took off his ring, and we went home.

What was it like after his death? And what did he pass on to you, Jirka?
To take care of my mother. So after graduating from high school, I didn’t go to medical school as I had originally planned. It wasn’t possible anymore anyway. They took our pub away in 1952, and my mother lost her money—she was earning two and a half thousand at the time. (The communists confiscated everything they had in Valdštejn, so my mother and I moved to Vyskeř, where we lived in two rooms, ed. note.)

I worked as a waiter’s apprentice for six hundred crowns a month. Soon after, they took me away from there and transferred me to the Regional Administration as an inspector. The irony of fate! They put me with one of the three inspectors, with whom I had to travel around the Liberec region, and together we seized more pubs. For example, the Sokolovna restaurant in Turnov. However, I found out about it in advance, so I managed to warn the owner. But in Ohrazenice, for example, I didn’t manage to warn them. It was a difficult time. I had to do the same thing they did to us.

“They made me a controller. I had to do the same thing they did to us. What an irony!”

What do you remember most fondly from your childhood at Valdštejn?
I still remember that everything at Valdštejn, from the chairs to everything else, belonged to us. There is still a stuffed bird from Valdštejn in the pub in Turnov. All of that should have belonged to our family if it had been inherited according to the law… Now I can only look at it.

Do you feel wronged?
How would you feel if one day two gentlemen, or more precisely comrades Tomášek and Fialka, came and said, “We are from the Regional Administration of Vzlet Liberec and we are taking over this establishment.” They would write down all your property, room by room… We saved a few things, and the rest is still there today.

Did you take anything nice with you that you remember?
Man, I can’t even remember… I have lists of the things they took from us. A few plates and dishes. It’s suddenly hard to remember. I took away those ten climbing routes. When I walk by, I still see that little boy peeing into the rainwater drain on the bridge. A little boy running around the courtyard naked. I see the places where my mother dried the laundry. I remember the jackdaws we had there.

Or the trips to elementary school: I’m ten years old, running to school in shorts and a T‑shirt, a backpack on my back, and at the end of the big bridge it starts to rain. Not that I turn back, I run the three kilometers barefoot and straight to my desk. In the afternoon, soaked through, back to Valdštejn. In winter we also walked, every day, in all weathers. I am grateful for such a childhood. I took away one motto from it: “I always made it.” Whenever I had a difficult period in my life, I reminded myself of it.

SKALÁK FEVER

Can you explain your favorite term, “Skalák fever”? Do you grow up in Skalák and have no choice but to start climbing there?
It started when I returned from military service and enrolled in the climbing school of the Regional Climbing Committee, which was organized by people from Liberec in Příhrazy. It was 1956. The first route was in Skalák on Maják, and Vratík Kalfeřt belayed me. There were seven of us climbing there, and the last one was Chroust (Vladimír Procházka Sr. Here you can see the first page of Jirka’s climbing diary, ed.). As far as I know, only Honza Picků is still alive today.

How did the first climb to Maják go?
We walked from Příhraz to Skalák to Maják, with Vratík leading the whole operation. And that’s how our week-long training began, learning how to climb as safely as possible.

What equipment did you have?
A 40-meter rope, chest harnesses, some shorts, some slings, and here and there someone had a carabiner. At that time, German climbers wore typical full-length leather pants with a “drop bridge” (an older term for the front flap on pants that was fastened with buttons, ed.). We did it by sewing a piece of leather onto the back of our pants.

For rappelling on a Dülfer? I also heard you say that “the figure-eight belay robs climbers of very specific experiences.” What experiences did you have in mind?
When using a figure eight, the rope goes through the carabiner and not over your buttocks, or at least one of them, which is a very specific experience. (laughs) But when you rappel like that for too long, you get tired of it. That’s true.

Later, you attracted a lot of people to climbing. For example, your wife Milada.
Milada had a good foundation as a girl from a farm, the oldest of four children. At the age of nine or ten, she was already carrying bricks to the elevator; life was no fun for her. As an adult, she was used to dressing nicely, and I took her to Skalák in a puffer jacket in winter, and she wore an Eskimo jacket with the fur standing up like this. And I led her through Skalák, happy to have her with me. Then she climbed with me too. Milada took our daughter Veronika to Zelenáče seven months before she was born, on a grade 1 route. That’s where she rappelled for the first time with belaying.

How did your son Jirka get on with climbing? Did he also catch the Skalák fever?
Yes, of course he did. He was already doing daring routes at the age of sixteen. I wasn’t that brave.

What was it like for you to watch your granddaughter Ráďa on the Egyptian Arete, which we filmed for The Lines and their Stories?
Yeah, I have mixed feelings about that. Even now, when she’s climbing difficult European routes, I still have a hidden fear somewhere in the back of my mind. Something could still happen to her. She has climbed the most difficult routes (7c on sports climbing, ed.), but I don’t even know those difficulties anymore.

TO THE ROCKS ON HORSEBACK

Let’s get back to your climbing. What did it mean to you?
In our day, climbing was mainly about the group. Style wasn’t that important; it was more fun to take turns climbing. We would catch up, chat, and help each other out while setting up. I think it was more fun than the sporty style of climbing today.

I remember my best friend at the time, Franta Patočka, who was 14 days younger than me. I was celebrating my birthday in the dormitory, and Franta kept coming in and complaining, “You’re celebrating here, what should I celebrate? I’ve got it! I haven’t celebrated my return from the army yet.” He got started and got pretty drunk. We carried him outside to a bench, tied him to it so he wouldn’t fall, and put a spruce cone in his fly.

Another time, Ilja, Tonda Šírový, and I were climbing Podmokelská. At the sixth ring, Ilja was so shaken up that he knocked my glasses off. So I climbed on without six diopters… Every Saturday and Sunday, the whole gang would meet at the dormitory in Valdštejn – Prague, Mladá Boleslav, Jičín, Liberec, Jablonec, Semily. Some of them used to ride up on a horse-drawn cart with logs that went to the castle.

Now for some numbers: You had over 150 climbing partners, and you recorded 911 ascents to a total of 320 towers in your climbing log. You and your group managed to climb the second or third ascent of Kuchař’s route VIIb (5c+ fr.) on the Tabu tower, which was quite something at the time. You yourself recorded it as your third “VIIb”. Which climb do you like to remember?
It could be the first ascent of Kapelníček.

Can you tell me more about it?
Sometime around 1960, the Hulínští boys came to Valdštejn. At that time, it was still possible to ride motorcycles to Skalák. They arrived in the first courtyard on a nicely polished Jawa 250, about twenty-five-year-old handsome guys with backpacks on their backs, equipped for mountaineering. Václav was a physicist and his brother Vojtěch was a doctor, the future head of surgery in Liberec. I was five or ten years older at the time, so I took them under my wing. That day we ended up at Lebka, the boys climbed and had a great time. Over time, I climbed with them a lot, and their mother began to worry: “Is climbing with Mr. Čihulka safe?” So I said, “Guys, invite your parents to come and see for themselves, and we’ll make the first ascent of Kapelníček.”

Their mother began to worry: “Is climbing with Mr. Čihulka safe?”

We arrived at Kapelníček with our parents, and Vojta said, “I’ll try it out a bit,” and started climbing. But he slipped and unfortunately fell onto a cut spruce tree. He landed on it with his rear end and was exhausted. So I climbed up, put the ring on, and pulled Vašek up. His mother could see that climbing was dangerous. Vašek climbed up to the ring, and I was pulling him up from the tower when he broke free, swung back and forth, waving his arms, and I had no choice but to lower him down. As I was rappelling down, I thought to myself, “Now I’m going to get it.” And when I got down, their mom said, “Vašek, you flew like an angel with those arms.“

Did they still go rock climbing with you after that? Did their parents let them?
Yeah, I climbed with them for a long time.

Who did you enjoy climbing with the most?
I would divide my climbing partners according to different stages of my life. At one time, it was Franta Patočků. I climbed the most difficult routes with Láďa Mejsnar before we went to Peru. And then I have fond memories of Milan Černý. I used to climb in Příhrazy. I reached the top of the valley path, reached up, and when a head peeked out at me, I said to myself, “Damn, he’s like a doll!” It was Milan Černý with his hair cut short. A beautiful boy, he looked like he had just climbed out of his cradle. I took a liking to him, and together with Franta Patočka, we trained him. We taught him how to rappel and belay. I remember him telling someone: “I know Příhraze, Franta Patočka and Jirka Čihulka trained me here like two fathers. I could have a beer with them and go to bed at nine, while they sat there longer.” Then Milan also stayed under Huascarán…

His wife comes from a well-known scouting family in Turnov. They were the three Havlovy sisters. They went cross-country skiing and cycling with me, they were up for anything. I also trained these girls at Sokol. My nickname was “Paša.” The younger one, Jitka, flew off on Lebka. The older one climbed everything with Milan, any B route (VIIb). Once she sent me an email: “Whenever I ride my bike past your house, I remember that the man who fundamentally influenced my life by taking me to Skalák for the first time lives here.“

How does it feel to hear that you’ve influenced someone’s life in this way?
All sorts of things. Because she fell in love with Milan Černý at Skalák, who stayed in Peru. So you can interpret it however you want. If I hadn’t taken her there, maybe she’d have a husband now… That’s a valid interpretation.

Was the tragedy under Huascarán a turning point for you?
I basically stopped climbing because my partners stayed there—Laďa Mejsnar, Milan Černej, Bohdan Nejedlo. At that time, I often sat on the stairs in the garden and was consumed by a kind of chimera of sadness, or whatever you want to call it. A part of my life was over. Take Milan Černej, for example, whom I had raised, so to speak… After the tragedy under Huascarán, it just wasn’t the same anymore.

IN COINCLUSION

How does it feel to be the oldest of all climbers?
I feel abandoned. I would describe it as the most serious situation I am currently facing. I have no friends. People only know me through Údolíčka (you can find an excerpt from the guide here; it is currently sold out, editor’s note) because I know a lot about them. There is no cure for age.

If you could go back to a period in your life when you were happy… Where would you go?
It would depend on what I could change about that period.

Is that how you see it?
Yes. It’s about who I could live with during that period. How happy the people around me would be, for example my family. I was fine when we had to leave Valdštejn. But at that time, I didn’t realize what it would mean for us.

And if you had to repeat one of those periods, what would it be like?
How long would it be?

That’s up to you.
It’s hard to say. Would the same people be living there?

Yes.
What if there was someone who was seriously ill at the time. Would they be seriously ill again?

Everything would be the same as it was then.
So my dad would have stomach cancer again. My mom would have to take care of us all again. That’s hard. I don’t know… I have to think about how it would be for the people around me. Would we be back in Valdštejn? (silence for a moment)

I don’t know if I’d want to go back to communism, because there would be no other option. Or to the time of my military service. Or the period of my twelve or so jobs – secretary of the finance department in Turnov, finance department in Semily, waiter at a cottage in Stráž, manager of a mountain retreat in Horní Mísečky… Military service in Aš, Varnsdorf, Slovakia, Rybitví, Ostrava, and other remote places. What would I do again in the army? Would I be a general education teacher with the rank of private at the internal guard officer school in Varnsdorf again? An athlete running the 60, 100, and high jump for Varnsdorf. I would go cross-country skiing. I would go on 130-kilometer bike trips from the research station up to the source of the Elbe with a friend who is also no longer with us today. Saturday and Sunday evenings with the gang in the dormitory…

Most of all, I would like to have those 50 years of life with Milada again, and maybe even more, if possible. That’s tough, man. If you were asked that question, you wouldn’t know either… And you’re much younger.

You’re right, actually. Jirka, thank you for talking to me.
You’re welcome.

It was my pleasure.
You’ll get over it. (laughs)

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