Horia Colibasanu leaves for Himalayas for attempt at new route to Dhaulagiri peak

Climber Horia Colibasanu left on Thursday for Nepal where he plans to continue the ambitious project started in 2019: opening of a new route to the Dhaulagiri peak (8,167 m) in the Himalayas. The Dhaulagiri expedition team includes three experienced climbers: Horia Colibasanu - who has a track record of eight peaks of over 8,000 meters, Marius Gane - Romanian performance athlete and high-altitude climber, and Peter Hamor - the Slovak sportsman who scaled all 14 peaks of over 8,000 meters in the Himalayas. The three athletes will have an oxygen-free ascent and without the help of the sherpas. "We are heading for a new adventure, an expedition to the Himalayas, in Nepal. (...) We attempt to scale the Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) on a new route, probably the first new Romanian route at over 8,000 meters, if we succeed in two months, in May, if we have a little luck with the weather. We are ready," Horia Colibasanu said in a video message posted on his Facebook page before leaving for Nepal. The climber says that his team knows what to expect on the route, because they know half of it. "Compared to the first expedition for this project, of opening a new route in the Himalayas, this year we have the advantage that we know half of the route. We know what to expect, what we're going to meet, what we're going to do. We just need a window of good weather," Colibasanu pointed out. The 2021 expedition is planned from March to June. Upon arrival in Kathmandu, Horia will observe the quarantine period of several days, and from 24 March will complete the acclimatization tour on the Khumbu Glacier - Everest base camp. In early April he will organize his expedition equipment in Kathmandu and fly to the Dhaulagiri 4,200 m base camp. From 5 April, setting the fixed ropes to camps 1, 2 and 3 begins, the last one being located at 6,600 m. From 28 April to 31 May, the ascent to the summit is planned, depending on weather conditions. The return to the country is planned in early June. The expedition can be followed on www.horiacolibasanuhimalaya.ro, on the Horia Colibasanu Facebook page and on the athlete's Twitter page. In 2021, the 22nd international expedition of Colibasanu and the 17th in the Himalayas takes place. The expedition is a project of the Alternative Sports Club Timisoara, a club affiliated with the Romanian Federation of Climbing and Escalade which runs and monitors climbing projects in the international sports calendar. Colibasanu is the first performance athlete in Romania to be vaccinated against COVID-19, this being possible also due to his main occupation, that of dentist in the Clinic Dr. Horia Colibasanu in the western city of Timisoara. Horia Colibasanu is a performance athlete, high-altitude climber, with successful climbs on 8 of the world's 14 summits of over 8,000 meters. His sporting results were also appreciated by the President of Romania Klaus Iohannis who awarded Horia Colibasanu in June 2017 the most important distinction that the President can bestow: the National Order "Star of Romania", in the rank of Knight. The mountains on which Colibasanu has climbed so far are: K2 (8,611 m), Manaslu (8,163 m), Dhaulagiri (8,167 m), Shishapangma (8,027 m), Annapurna (8,091 m), Makalu (8,463 m), Lhotse (8,516 m), Everest (8,848 m). Horia Colibasanu has participated in 22 international expeditions throughout his career, teaming up with partners from different countries such as Slovakia, Russia, Spain and Poland. Horia Colibasanu is the only Romanian climber to have received the "Spirit of Mountaineering" award from the British Alpine Club, the oldest and most prestigious mountain club in the world. AGERPRES (RO - author: Sorin Blada, editor: Karina Olteanu; EN - author: Maria Voican, editor: Simona Klodnischi)