» First Romanian Ascent, no supplementary
oxygen used, no Sherpa support
Alex was quite obsessed by Makalu’s huge size and beautifully pyramid shape, whose sight he first had on a black and white photo from a yellow old page of a book related with the history of Himalayan mountaineering found in his high school library.
Having suffered an incipient form of High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE), Alex’s partner Mihnea Radulescu had to abort his ascent. Going up to put the Camp Three at 7400m in Makalu La and complete his acclimatization program, Alex felt that a direct summit push just might be possible given the right conditions. He spent a night at 7400m and then he moved up to 7800m, the place of the last bivouac.[...] He left then for the summit quite late in the next morning (around four o’clock) due to the incredible intense cold that forced him to earlier leave the tent. He reached the summit in the afternoon (about one hour after Kazakh Denis Urubko and his two partners), exactly twenty days after the team’s arrival into the Hillary Base Camp at 4800m.
Shortly after returning to Khatmandu, Mihnea and Alex joined an international team to unsuccessfully try rescuing the Spanish climber Inaki Ochoa de Olza stranded at 7400m high on Annapurna.
Two weeks later, Alex flew directly from Kathmandu to Islamabad to try one more time Gasherbrum 2 again with Pawel Michalski. The two retreated from around 7000m due to increasingly dangerous weather. Deciding that enough happened in an extremely short time, Alex headed for home while Pawel successfully climbed G2 together with Italian Simone La Terra about one and a half week later.[«...] » Makalu Expedition Page
» First Romanian Ascent, no supplementary
oxygen used, no Sherpa support
The initial idea was to climb two eight thousand meter peaks in one single expedition: Gasherbrum 1 (8068m) and Gasherbrum 2 (8035m).
The plan was to first climb G2 (considered easier) in expedition style and then, having the proper acclimatization, to make a fast alpine style ascent of G1. The things turned to worse when two German climbers were killed on an avalanche between camps.[...] Two and Three on G2, many others having a close call as well. Few days before, Alex just retreated from the mountain at around 6800 m due to the same highly unstable snow conditions.
A period of prolonged bad weather followed and Andrei Nan, Alex’s partner, considered their project as not being an attainable goal anymore. Feeling in a realistically way that the game was not over yet and partnering with Polish Pawel Michalski (which he had met one year before on Cho Oyu and by sheer luck the guys happened to share the same base camp) , Alex succeeded in climbing G1 via the Japanese Couloir. Spanish Jordi Jill and Iranian Mehdi Etefadmar were also part of the summit team (and sharing with the two the tent in Camp 3 at 7000m as well).[«...] » Gasherbrum 1 Expedition Page
» Second Romanian Ascent, no supplementary
oxygen used, no Sherpa support
This was Alex’s first expedition to an 8000m peak. Having to continue by himself after Sergiu Matei’s retreat due to High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), Alex had to change his plan and went to the summit straight from Camp 2 (7200m) instead of Camp 3 (7600m), summiting on solitary in the late afternoon.[...] While Sergiu waited in the Advanced Base Camp he saved the life of a Tibetan Refugee and filmed the world famous shootings on Nangpa La. At 24, Alex became the youngest Romanian to have summited an 8000m peak. His expedition was featured on February 2007 issue of National Geographic Romania.[«...] » Cho Oyu Expedition Page
