Pakistani women have been shining the country’s name in every field now. Last but not the least, Pakistani female climber Samina Baig has made the international headlines in mountaineering.
Samina Baig has become the first Pakistani woman to summit K2. She was part of a seven-member Pakistani team. Samina Baig and the team scaled the world’s second-highest and Pakistan’s tallest mountain K2 (8611 meters) this morning at 7:42 am.
The team consisted of
- Samina Baig (Shimshal, Hunza)
- Eid Muhammad (Shimshal, Hunza)
- Bulbul Karim, (Shimshal)
- Ahmed Baig (Shimshal)
- Rizwan Dad (Shimshal)
- Waqar Ali (Shimshal)
- Hussain Sadpara (Skardu)
Two female mountaineers have set their eyes on doing something which no other Pakistani woman has done so far — scaling the world’s second-highest mountain K2 at 8,611 m.
K2 is considered one of the most difficult peaks to scale, and less than 10 women have successfully summited this mountain.
This year two Pakistani women climbers – Samina Baig and Naila Kiani – have set their eyes on reaching the top of K2.
Samina, who in 2013 became the first Pakistani woman to climb Mount Everest. Last year, Shehroze Kashif, the youngest Pakistani climber from Lahore climbed Mount Everest and hoisted the Pakistani flag on top of the World.
Samina Baig has already reached the K2 base camp from Skardu and will move to Camp 1 in a day or two. Her summit is expected to be completed by the third week of July but it will be depending on weather conditions at the mountain. She made two attempts – in 2015 and 2021 – to summit K2 but accidents and weather conditions forced her to abort her expedition then.
Naila, who now lives in Dubai with family, also arrived in Pakistan on Thursday night and will move to Skardu on Saturday before trekking to the K2 base camp.
Kiani was the first Pakistani woman to climb 8,035m Gasherbrum II, making her the first-ever Pakistani woman to climb an 8,000 inside Pakistan.
Twitter celebrates the historic moment
Another group of foreign climbers summited 8,051m, the world’s 12th highest mountain Broad Peak, on Wednesday. The group also included British mountaineer Adriana Brownlee, making her the youngest climber to scale 9 peaks of over 8,000m by summiting 8,051m Broad Peak in Pakistan.
According to Karrar Haideri of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, those who summited Broad Peak on Wednesday morning included UK’s Adriana Brownlee, Poland’s Dorota Lidia Samocko, Brazil’s Moses Fiamoncini Nepal’s Gelje Sherpa and Dawa Nurbu Sherpa.
The 21-year-old UK-based climber, Adriana Brownlee who earlier this month had scaled Nanga Parbat, reached on top of the world’s 12th highest mountain Wednesday morning after leaving for her final summit push from C3 at around 5:00 am.
This was her 9th peak of over 8,000m and the youngest to do so. Pakistan’s Shehroze Kashif — who is one year younger than Adriana — has done 8 peaks of 8,000m and is currently on a mission to scale G-I and G-II.
Both Adriana and Shehroze Kashif are eyeing to become the youngest to scale all 14 peaks of over 8,000m in the world. The current record is with Nepal’s Mingma David Gyabu (known as Mingma G) who completed all 14 top peaks at the age of 30 years and 166 days.
Brownlee has previously climbed Everest, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, Annapurna 1, and Nanga Parbat. In contrast, Kashif has Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, and the Broad Peak to his credit.
Adriana, after coming back to base camp, will move to K2 and aims to push her K2 summit next week with her eyes on 28th July as a potential summit date. A few claims of the fastest ascent to the Broad Peak also exist.
According to social media post by Adventure Guide Pakistan, French alpinist Benjamin Vedrines reached the top of Broad Peak from base camp in 7 hours. He descended back to base camp via paraglide.
If this claim can be verified, this will be the fastest ascent to Broad Peak. Official sources confirmed that they are still verifying details about this. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s young and emerging climber Eisha Sajid has also moved to C2 of Broad Peak. She will soon move to C3 where she will be joined by her mentor Sajid Sadpara.
If Eisha manages to scale Broad Peak, she would be the youngest ever climber to reach on top of this mountain, surpassing Shehroze Kashif who did so at 17. She will also become the youngest Pakistani to reach the top of any 8,000m peak.
On the other hand, on K2, Pakistan’s Naila Kiani reached Camp 3 while Samina Baig was at Camp 4 on Wednesday evening. Sources say that there are over 100 climbers in the race to summit K2 this week.
