Gheorghe Dijmărescu

Gheorghe Dijmărescu (commonly known as George Dijmarescu)[1] is a Romanian-American known for escaping from the Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu by swimming the Danube river, and for his mountaineering exploits including summiting Mount Everest multiple times in the early 2000s.[1] Gheorghe married Lhakpa Sherpa in 2002, the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest and survive and the woman with most number of times to the summit of Mount Everest in the early 21st century.[1] They met in Kathmandu in the year 2000.[2] From 2008, he had some battles with medical problems.[1] Some of Dijmărescu's life was included in the Michael Kodas' book High Crimes, about a 2004 Connecticut expedition to Mount Everest Dijmărescu organized.[1][3]

In Kodas' book, Dijmărescu is portrayed as an angry, short-tempered, and violent man with dictatorial tendencies. Kodas and multiple other people witnessed Dijmărescu beat his wife Lhakpa Sherpa in Everest's Tibetan base camp, and Kodas and the designated expedition leader felt so threatened by Dijmărescu that they feared he would break into their tents at night and assault them. After returning to Connecticut, Kodas went so far as to install a security system at his home because he feared for his family's safety due to Dijmărescu's continued threats.

By 2003, Dijmărescu was noted for having summited Mount Everest five times in five years.[4] He eventually summited Mount Everest nine times, the most for a Western guide at that time.[5][6] In 2004, he rescued a Mexican climber who was getting frosbitten;[1] Dijmărescu and fellow climber David Watson organized the rescue of the Mexican, which Watson later noted as example of what should have happened with David Sharp, who died in 2006 high on Tibetan Everest.[7]

In 2007, Dave Hahn tied Dijmărescu's record for a Western guide of nine times to the summit.[8] Hahn almost tied Dijmărescu's the previous spring year, but Dijmărescu also summited that year and maintained his lead.[6] Hahn summited in October 2006 after already summiting in the spring, which made two summits in a year.[9] In the spring of 2007 Dijmărescu also summited early on, thus taking a lead before Dave summited again later that month.[9]

Records show Hahn's first summit was from the Tibet-side on May 26, 1999.[10]

Danube escape

It was a big deal that Dijmărescu survived his swim across the Danube. He could not even say goodbye to his parents; the swim took over an hour and was timed to avoid guards who killed swimmers.[11] He managed to make his way through Yugoslavia and escape to Italy.[11] From there he was granted political asylum in the United States, and eventually settled in New England.[11]

Dijmărescu's Mount Everest summit record

Dijmărescu sumited Mount Everest:

  1. May 26, 1999.[10]
  2. May 19, 2000[10]
  3. May 23, 2001[10]
  4. May 17, 2002[10]
  5. May 31, 2003[12]
  6. May 20, 2004[12][13]
  7. Jun 2, 2005[12][14]
  8. May 11, 2006[9]
  9. May 15, 2007[9]
gollark: By then Intel will have something ridiculous like a 10400.
gollark: But you're only going to be able to afford it in, what was it, three years, <@229624651314233346>, I think you said.
gollark: Amazing.
gollark: I don't mine.
gollark: I could start CPU mining on my server's E3-1240, great way to waste power.

See also

References
  1. Schaffer, Grayson (2016-05-10). "The Most Successful Female Everest Climber of All Time Is a Housekeeper in Hartford, Connecticut". Outside Online. Retrieved 2016-05-11.
  2. "Lapka Profile Everest 2004". Everest News.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-05-26. Retrieved 2016-06-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Everest Summiters Lakpa Sherpa and George Dijmarescu slide show/video presentation open to the public". Everestnews.com. 2000-05-18. Archived from the original on 2016-10-26. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
  7. Breed, Allen G. & Gurubacharya , Binaj (July 30, 2006). "On Top of the World, But Abandoned There Near Everest's Summit, David Sharp's Quest Met a Tragic End". The Washington Post. Associated Press. p. D01.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  14. Himalayan Database - Spring 2005
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