Antonis Sykaris after 70 days in the Himalayas arrived in Athens a few days ago.On April 16, 2021, he made the first Greek ascent to the mountain of avalanches, Annapurna. The climber conquered the 5th peak of his life, over 8,000m., Attempting twice from camp 4 at 6,890m. Finally, he managed to climb to the top at 14:00 and become the first Greek to climb 5 of the 14 peaks over 8,000m. Through social media, he dedicated this important peak in Greece, to all Greeks and Greek climbers. 

His goal was and is to complete the Grand Slam project, ie the ascent to the 14 independent peaks above 8,000m, so he continued his efforts on another mountain of 8,000m, the Dhaulagiri (8,167m).

In Dhaulagiri, however, and in the 5,700m camp, Covid19 found him as well as his entire team. So Antonis after a great adventure returned to Katmandu where he remained in quarantine for 14 days, after he managed to overcome Covid relatively quickly, faced the lock down of Kathmandu, flights were banned and it was impossible to return to Greece. Finally, with the valuable help of the exceptional man and Ambassador of our country to India, Dionysis Kyvotos, who worked tirelessly in the last few days, managed to include him in the direct repatriation flight of Iberia (Kathmandu Madrid 12 hours) organized by the Spanish government in cooperation with embassy of Nepal that aimed to repatriate all the Spaniards who were in Nepal along with them and Antonis Sykaris. 

A few words about Antonis Sykaris 

Antonis Sykaris, already counting 31 years of mountaineering, has successfully climbed 134 peaks abroad and has carried out 63 mountaineering missions in various countries around the world. He is the only Greek who has climbed 5 of the 14 peaks over 8,000 m, while he has still climbed 54 peaks above 4,000 m in the Alps.