An American mountaineer died on Sunday while he was trying to climb Mount Makalu, the fifth highest peak in the world in the Himalayan chain, we learned on Monday from the organizers of the expedition. 39 years old, Alexander Pancoe died while he was at Camp 2 on the road leading him to Makalu (8,485 m altitude).
“He did not feel well when he came back down from an acclimatization stay at Camp 3,” I Iswari Paudel, of the Himalayan company Guides Nepal, reported without further details. Considered an experienced climber, Alexander Pancoe had climbed the highest peaks of the seven continents.
Remove from a brain tumor, he suffered from leukemia and embarked on the ascent of the Makalu to raise funds for the benefit of anti-cancer medical research. “It is a huge challenge for me to climb to an altitude where it is difficult to evolve without suffering from a chronic disease, but I am delighted to try it,” he wrote on his Internet page.
His death has brought to two the number of mountaineers who have been dead since the start of the ascent season which has just opened in Nepal. The Himalayan country has granted nearly 500 permits for the season, including 214 for Everest alone, the highest peak on the planet.
