For the third day in a row, commercial expedition operators today reported summit successes from Annapurna I in western Nepal. Among those who reached the summit this Monday – with bottled oxygen and Sherpa support – were two more representatives of Pakistan’s young generation of climbers.
Naila Kiani became the country’s first woman to stand on Annapurna I. For her, it was the fourth eight-thousander after Gasherbrum I (in 2021), K2 and Gasherbrum II (both in 2022). Naila, a former amateur boxer, studied aerospace engineering in the UK and later worked as a banker in Dubai. She has lived in the Gulf state for years with her husband and their two young daughters. This spring, she plans to attempt to climb Mount Everest and Lhotse after Annapurna.
For 21-year-old Shehroze Kashif, Annapurna I was already the tenth eight-thousander. This does not include Manaslu, where Shehroze failed to reach the “True Summit” in fall 2021, the very highest point at the end of the summit ridge. Kashif scaled the eight-thousander Broad Peak in his home country when he was just 17 years old and has been called “Broad Boy” ever since. On Saturday, Sajid Ali Sadpara, the son of the legendary late Muhammad Ali Sadpara, who died on K2 in winter 2021, had already summited Annapurna I – in contrast to Kiani and Kashif without bottled oxygen. It was the fifth eight-thousander summit for the 24-year-old.
Also without breathing mask, according to information from Nepal, the two Poles Oswald Rodrigo Pereira and Bartosz Ziemski reached today the highest point at 8,091 meters.
Indian climber missing
Meanwhile, on the tenth highest mountain in the world, the Indian climber Anurag Maloo is missing. Mingma Sherpa, head of the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, told the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” that the 34-year-old had abandoned his summit attempt at the last high camp and had apparently fallen into a crevasse while descending at an altitude of around 6,000 meters.
Update 18 April: Bartosz Ziemski skied from the summit down to the lowest snow-covered point at around 4,800 meters, according to his own words. Only between Camp 3 (6,700 m) and 2 (5,700 m) he had to unstrap his skis three times to abseil, the Pole let it be known.
