Pakistan is witnessing its busiest mountaineering season since the 9/11 attacks with summiteers from across the world — US, Europe, China, Russia etc — attempting to set new records. Among these, is also the first Arab woman to attempt to scale K2.
Nelly Attar, a Lebanese mountaineer, raised in Saudi Arabia, began her journey to the second highest mountain on 20 June and wants to use her climbs as a way to inspire women in Pakistan and across the Middle East.
“I am embarking on the most challenging journey to climb K-2…I feel like there’s so much unknown, there’s so much to this journey that we will be embarking on, so I’m very excited”, Attar said in an interview to an Arab news channel in Islamabad. She also said that she had been planning to summit the mountain for the past three years.
Standing at 8,610m, K2 is also called the ‘Savage Mountain’ and regarded to be among the most difficult climbs. Till now, less than 20 women across the world have submitted K2. Attar summited Mount Everest in 2019.
The tourist department of Gilgit Baltistan has already issued over 700 permits to climbers, according to the secretary of Pakistan’s Alpine Club Karrar Haidri. Pakistan has a vibrant mountaineering culture, as it is home to five of the world’s 14 eight-thousander peaks, including K2. Besides K2, which is the second-highest peak in the world, Pakistan is also home to Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum-I, Gasherbrum – II and Broad Peak.
Pakistan expects to host over 1,400 mountaineers from across the globe. This is a marked rise from the 550 climbers last year.
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The summer alpine
Haidri credited this busy mountaineering season to the introduction of online visas and the peaceful conditions in Pakistan. Speaking to Dawn, home secretary Iqbal Hussian said that the Gilgit-Baltistan government and army had multiple arrangements in place in case of an emergency, to rescue climbers.
For this extremely busy mountaineering season, over 3,000 porters have also been hired by several expedition teams.
In the busy mountaineering season, Pakistan’s very own mountaineers will also be participating, including the likes of Sajid Ali Sadpara, who lost his father and famous mountaineer Ali Sadpara to K2 last year. Besides Sadpara, there are about 40 other local mountaineers such as Sheroze Kashif, Samina Baig, Naila Kiani, Sirbaz Khan and Abdul Joshi.
The current season is known as the summer alpine, and regarded to be the most popular season to climb in. Pakistan also made news in the winter climbing season, when an all Nepalese team of 10 climbers, most of them sherpas, summited K2 in the winter for the first time, in January 2021.