The early days of the post-World War II history of mountaineering was a period of venturing into the unknown and discovery. With many remote areas of the highest mountain ranges unexplored and unmapped, climbers were forced to piece together information from fragments painstakingly gathered through contacts with colleagues from other countries and from reports of climbs published in specialist journals.

Czechoslovak climbers were presented with particular obstacles due to their isolation behind the iron curtain with limited chances for free exchange of information, limited travel opportunities and omnipresent censorship. Despite these restraints, Czechoslovak successes contributed to the body of knowledge about the world’s highest peaks.