Unless you live in Siberia or Canada's Arctic, you likely don't know cold like Maciej Berbeka, a Polish computer science specialist and traveler who has been undertaking solo climbs for over a decade in what he calls some of the coldest and most inaccessible mountain ranges and plateaus on Earth.
Berbeka's latest expedition took place in February. It was the first winter solo ascent of https://summitx.info/ru/objects/peaks/12625907/about ↗, and it perfectly illustrates his longstanding interest in extreme cold and autonomous travel.
The Coldest Mountain on the Planet?
Pobeda, the highest peak in Yakutia, was previously climbed in winter in 2018 by climbers Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger. Moro called it "the coldest climb in history, on the coldest mountain on the planet," as temperatures as low as -70˚C have been recorded in the region.
Berbeka started his winter solo from the same point as Moro and Lunger. He ascended in a single day, tracing a line through deep, loose snow all the way. "Of all my solo winter ascents in North Siberia, this was definitely the most challenging," he said.
"Others were just as cold, maybe even colder, but none were even close in terms of technical difficulties and snow conditions," he added.
Berbeka reached the start of the route on skis, then switched to crampons and ascended via the south wall, repeating the route through the central couloir taken in 2018.
Summiting in the Dark
"I only reached the ridge around 6 pm because the snow in the couloir was not very stable, and I had to search for a long time to find a way to continue," he explained. Around that time, the sun set. In the village near Pobeda, the temperature dropped to -58˚C.
"The summit was very close, but there was still a rocky section on the ridge," Berbeka said. It was already dark, and bypassing the gendarme was technically challenging.
The next two hours, the Pole spent searching for a path to the true summit, until he finally made his way up on the north slope via relatively safer snow. He returned down to his tent at 4 am, after a 22-hour ascent, including the initial approach to the mountain.
The 2026 Shackleton Award
This was far from Berbeka's first Siberian adventure. In February 2025, he completed a solo winter crossing of the Anabar Plateau (https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=70.93083&mlon=107.75389&zoom=15#map=6/70.17/108.40&layers=P ↗), a rarely visited area in the Central Siberian Plateau.
He skied approximately 220 km across the highest part of the plateau, climbing two unnamed peaks along the way: the highest point on the plateau at 908 m and a second, steeper peak, whose height he did not record.
During the ski traverse, temperatures sometimes dropped to -40˚ and -50˚C. On the final kilometers, he had to endure a severe blizzard.
For this expedition, last week Berbeka was awarded the 11th Shackleton Award at Expedition Finse, an annual polar adventure festival in the Norwegian mountains. The award committee included polar expedition legend Borge Ousland. Berbeka, still wrapping up his current project, was not present at the award ceremony.
Another "Ice Warrior"
Polish travelers have a rich history of embracing pain and suffering in the cold. Canadian mountaineering writer Bernadette McDonald wrote a popular book called "Winter 8000", which tells the story of a generation of Polish climbers who made the first winter ascents of seven of the 14 eight-thousanders. McDonald dubbed them the Ice Warriors.
Berbeka appears to be following in their footsteps. "This guy knows cold," remarked veteran polar explorer Eric Phillips recently on social media.
Berbeka's Anabar expedition is part of a broader personal initiative he calls the "Mountain Cold Poles" project, aimed at climbing the coldest mountains on the planet during the harshest winter periods.
The Cold Pole
The Pole's objectives are defined by two main criteria: autonomy and extreme cold. As he put it, he's interested in two things: extreme remoteness, defined by distance to the nearest human settlements and the complexity of the approach, and extreme weather. January-February are the months he finds most appealing.
Under this concept, Berbeka has targeted the highest peaks of some of the most inaccessible ranges in North-East Siberia, including the https://summitx.info/ru/objects/ranges/12385061/about ↗, https://summitx.info/ru/objects/ranges/12392424/about ↗, https://summitx.info/ru/objects/ranges/12504308/about ↗, Moma, Anabar, and https://summitx.info/ru/objects/ranges/12322581/about ↗ ranges.
Among them is https://summitx.info/ru/objects/peaks/12622452/about ↗, which he chose for its proximity to Oymyakon, one of the coldest permanently inhabited places on Earth. He has already climbed an unnamed highest point in the Verkhoyansk Range near the town of Verkhoyansk, another "cold pole."
Alongside these ascents, chosen for their temperature, Berbeka has also pursued objectives defined primarily by their autonomy, which he describes as his additional "Mountain Solitude Poles" project. As part of it, he traversed the https://summitx.info/ru/objects/ranges/12408191/about ↗ range on the Taymyr Peninsula in 2017, as well as crossing the Anabar Plateau in 2025.
Berbeka took care to verify the uniqueness of his expeditions in Russian expedition archives, contacting climbers and regional sources.
Source: ExplorersWeb ↗, Ash Routen
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