Climbing Mount Everest is already one of the world’s toughest challenges, but Romanian mountaineer Mădălin “Cris” Cristea decided to make it even harder by beginning his expedition more than 1,100 kilometers away, on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Over 113 days earlier this year, he walked across India and Nepal, reached the summit, and returned to the sea, covering a total of over 2,200 km. The expedition was the third stage of his tougher take on the Seven Summits project - an attempt to climb the highest peak on every continent by starting at sea level, walking to the mountain, reaching the summit, and returning to the nearest ocean on foot.
After Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro, Everest became both his largest expedition and the hardest mountain he had climbed so far. Cris began the journey in Digha, West Bengal, in early March, walking between 35 and 45 km a day across rural India and Nepal. He completed the approach and return unsupported, carrying his own backpack, before joining a Nepali expedition team for the climb itself.
Despite the distance, heat, food poisoning, and difficult logistics, he says Everest remained the toughest part. “Because so many people climb it these days, people assume it’s easy. It isn’t,” he told Romania-Insider.com.
Born in Orșova, Romania, Cris moved to the UK at the age of 20 in search of better work opportunities. He discovered mountaineering after moving to London and going through a difficult period in his early twenties. Inspired by Bear Grylls’ autobiography, he climbed Mount Olympus at 23 and gradually turned his Seven Summits ambition into a much more demanding challenge.
“I decided to double down and make it harder,” he said. “That was when the idea was born: to climb these mountains by starting at the nearest sea and walking every single meter to the top and back to the sea again.” Descending from Everest summit In the interview below, he talks about the long road to Everest, the origins of his sea-to-sea project, the risks and sacrifices behind it, and the four summits still ahead. You were born in Orșova but moved to London.
How did that journey from Romania to the UK come about, and what should readers know about your life beyond mountaineering? I was born in Orșova, Romania, and I am now 35 years old. I moved to the UK from Romania when I was 20 years old in search of better work opportunities.
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