He was a Goral, an ethnographic group which inhabits the Tatra Mountains on both sides of the modern border between Poland and Slovakia.

During the late 19th century, mountaineering became a popular pastime for young people from the middle and upper classes across Europe.

He is said to have had outstanding qualities of character: tact, minimisation of risk, courage, consideration, self-sacrifice, helpfulness, diligence and honesty.

[c] In 1903, the recently founded Sekcja Turystyczna Towarzystwa Tatrzańskiego [pl] ('Tourist Section of the Tatra Society') rewarded him for discovering a new pass through the main ridge of the Tatras, namely Wschodnia Batyżowiecka Przełęcz [pl].

In 1909, Mariusz Zaruski (1867–1941, Polish soldier and sportsman) founded Tatrzańskie Ochotnicze Pogotowie Ratunkowe (TOPR, 'Tatra Volunteer Search and Rescue').

Conditions were atrocious: a violent thunderstorm, and heavy rain mixed with snow and hail.

After hours of climbing, the party, nearly exhausted, had reached to about 50–70 m (160–230 ft) from where Szulakiewicz lay, and could hear him calling out.

He had been caught in a rockfall, and lay in Wyżnia Rówienkowa Przełęcz [pl], a high mountain pass.

His gravestone bears the Polish-language inscription, Poświęcił się i zginął ('He sacrificed himself and died').

He is mentioned in the memoirs of Janusz Chmielowski [pl] (1878-1968, mechanical engineer and mathematician; who called Bachleda 'one of the most important figures in the history of Zakopane in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century')[1] and of Mieczysław Karłowicz, and in poems by Stanisław Gąsienica-Byrcyn (1911-1991, poet and writer, son of a Tatra guide and mountain rescuer),[6] Jan Kasprowicz (1860-1926, poet, playwright, critic and translator), Zygmunt Lubertowicz [pl] (1883-1958, teacher, poet, writer, publicist, and social, cultural and tourist activist), Stanisław Nędza-Kubiniec [pl] (1897-1976, poet and writer), and Mieczysław Opałek [pl] (1881-1964, historian, poet, bibliophile, cultural researcher, journalist and educator).

Księga Tatr ('The Book of the Tatra', 1955) by Jalu Kurek (1904-1983, poet and writer) is a novelised account of Bachleda's life.

The part of Bachleda was played by Józef Gąsienica Wawrytko [pl] (1889-1971, Tatra guide and mountain rescuer).