ISLAMABAD: Mountaineer Naila Kiani has successfully scaled Annapurna, the 10th highest summit in the world at 8,091 meters above sea level in South Asian country Nepal, becoming the first Pakistani woman to achieve the feat.
Naila reached the summit on Monday morning, becoming the first Pakistani woman to climb four peaks above 8,000 meters.
She was part of the 6-member team, including the emerging Pakistani climber Shehroze Kashif and an Indian climber Arjun Vajpai.
Naila also aims at summitting the world’s highest peak Mount Everest, and Lhotse Peak later this year.
In 2022, she successfully scaled her 3rd peak over 8,000m, Gasherbrum-1, despite facing difficult weather conditions between the C2 and C3 points.
The climber scaled K2 in July and summited Gasherbrum-II in 2021.
She married at the base camp of K2 in 2018 before launching her climbing career in 2021.
Shehroze Kashif’s amazing journey of scaling summits
Having scaled the Broad Peak, the world’s 12th-highest peak, at seventeen, Kashif was termed “The Broad Boy”. However, his career had started long ago.
Kashif began climbing mountains at eleven, with Makra Peak being the first one, followed by Chembra Peak and Musa ka Musalla at twelve, Mingli Sar in Shimshal at thirteen, Khurdopin Pass at fifteen, and Khosar Gang in alpine style at the age of eighteen.
The 21-year-old climber also became the youngest Pakistani to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, on 11 May 2021. Following the achievement, the Punjab Sports Board appointed him the youth ambassador of the province.
Kashif became the world’s youngest climber to scale K2 on 27 July 2021 at 19.
On 5 May 2022, he became the world’s youngest mountain climber and the first Pakistani to scale Kangchenjunga, the world’s 3rd-highest peak in Nepal and India.
