Makalu expedition

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.

August 7, 2008

Alex Gavan's interview with Marius Vintila on Radio Guerrilla studios

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July 20, 2008

Too much wind.Too much snow.Too much danger. Too much unpredictability. Too much pain.

"the voice in my head says love is the distance between you and what you love whether you love what you love or live in divided ceaseless revolt against it what you love is your fate" (Frank Bidart) It's over for this ...
July 13, 2008

Still in Base Camp; summit push aborted due to bad weather

Well... we are still in Base Camp after we aborted our Saturday evening intention to start our summit push. The next try should have been this evening but the last night incoming snowfall made us again change our ...
July 10, 2008

Alex Gavan about the tomorrow summit push live on Radio Guerrilla.

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July 9, 2008

False Summits. True Vanities.

"Great things are done when Men and Mountains meet, This is not done by jostling in the street." (William Blake)   I think the mountains should be a space of freedom and of purity. And of the elevation of the soul. Tired ...
July 8, 2008

Alex is sharing with Marius Vintila the story of the last days on the mountain and the next steps

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July 7, 2008

Camp Two established; next, summit push

We have finally managed to set up the first two camps up the mountain and came down from Camp Two to Base Camp yesterday at midday, just the moment the weather got bad. Camp One is at about 8km distance from Base Camp ( GPS ...
June 30, 2008

Alex Gavan discussing the situation on G2 with Marius Vintila live on radio Guerrilla

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June 29, 2008

Climbing up Camp 2 aborted due to bad weather; Vlado Plulik supposedly lost on Broad Peak

We had to give up our intention to climb up the mountain and establish Camp Two at 6400m due to bad weather; and the forecast seems to stay bad till next Tuesday at least… In a way all these long days spent in Base Camp were good ...
June 25, 2008

Alex shares his thoughts on his new attempt on G2, Annapurna rescue mission, his successful climb of Makalu and the partnership with Mihnea Radulescu

Gasherbrum 2 Base Camp (5000m) – the story goes on It was a quite long break in writing (but not in updating the website). After all that happened since my Makalu summit and Inaki's passing away, I was just not in the mood to ...
June 23, 2008

Alex reached Gasherbrum2 Base Camp; four people dead in Gasherbrum 1 and K2

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June 12, 2008

Alex Gavan reached Paiju Camp (3100m)

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June 9, 2008

Alex Gavan reached Skardu and is heading to Gasherbrum 2 base camp

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May 29, 2008

Alex Gavan's live interview on Radio Guerrilla about Annapurna rescue mission and his next climbing plans on Gasherbrum 2

For more info regarding the Annapurna rescue efforts check www.explorersweb.com, www.russianclimb.com, www.alternativetm.ro and www.horiacolibasanu.ro

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May 14, 2008

Alex Gavan reached Makalu Summit on May the 12th!

 

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May 4, 2008

Camp Two at about 6700m established in mild snow storm.

Well, I just posted my update on May 1st and what I feared most happened: the weather turned bad. This did not affect our plan in the beginning. We just climbed up to Camp One to spent another night for acclimatization. In the ...
April 30, 2008

Camp One At 6200m established

In the very morning of April 29 Mihnea and I left our ABC to establish Camp One at 6200m and to spend one night there to help with our acclimatization. Our plan is to have established three high altitude camps at 6200m, 6800m and ...
April 27, 2008

Makalu Advanced Base Camp, 5600m

Hello world! YES, we're alive and rockin' hard!...now that we finally solved the communication system challenge we had with our Inmarast device since our arrival in Nepal. Things got really crazy in the last two weeks…and we ...
April 7, 2008

Alex Gavan and Mihnea Radulescu ready to leave for Kathmandu

On Thursday, April 10th, Alex and Mihnea will fly to Nepal. The guys will meet directly in Kathmandu, Alex flying from Bucharest and Mihnea from London.
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