Horia on K2 Summit, July 28, 2004. That was first and the sole successful climb of K2, up to now, by a Romanian climber.Photo: Iñaki Ochoa de Olza
Horia, born in 1977 in Timișoara, Romania, has a day-job as a dentist, where he practices in the city of Timisoara in the southeast of the country.
At the age of 21, Horia started climbing mountains outside his country, including Gumachi(3,805m) in the Caucasus and the tallest mountain in Europe - Elbrus (5,648m), Khan Tengri (7,010m) in the Tian Shan range - and the Matterhorn (4,462m) in the Alps.
Horia attempted his first 8,000-meter mountain at the age of 27 in 2004.
This was K2 - known as the "Savage Mountain" because of its severe weather conditions. At 8,611m, K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth and is located in the Karakoram Range in north Pakistan.
Together with Spanish climber Iñaki Ochoa (1967-2008), one of the world's best climbers at that time, Horia succeeded the K2 summit assault, without using supplementary oxygen.
The K2 success was a premiere for Horia’s home country. But K2 was just the beginning.
Two years after climbing K2, Horia successfully climbed Manaslu (2006), Dhaulagiri I (2007) and Annapurna I (2010), among the most dangerous peaks in the world, according to the Himalayan Database. All these were a first for a Romanian.
Horia also climbed Makalu (2011) and Lhotse (2013) mountains.
Horia on K2 Summit, July 28, 2004. That was first and the sole successful climb of K2, up to now, by a Romanian climber.