Long gone are the days when Pakistani mountaineers did nothing but haul equipment up mountains for foreign expeditions. They now rightly claim to be recognized and respected as mountaineers with their own sporting ambitions. This applies, for example, to Abdul Joshi.
The 40-year-old led a five-member Pakistani team that reached the summit of the 7,708-meter-high Tirich Mir on 1 August – opening “a brand new route overcoming highly technical terrain, deep crevasses, and dangerous ice-rock transitions,” as the expedition report states. The route leads through the southern flank of the mountain.
Like an octopus with its tentacles
It was the first time a Pakistani team scaled the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush. Tirich Mir is located near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was first climbed by Norwegian mountaineers in 1950.
They compared the massif, with its numerous secondary peaks, all over 7,300 meters high, and ridges to an octopus stretching out its tentacles. In the following decades, several foreign teams, including some from Japan, Great Britain, Austria and Poland, opened new routes on Tirich Mir and its secondary peaks.
Difficulties in the upper part of the route
The Pakistani mountaineers set up their last camp before the summit at around 6,350 meters. Above that, the difficulties began.
“From 6,700m upward, the terrain became highly technical,” the team reports. “150m section of pure ice posed serious risk to climbers. The most critical part began at 7,450m with exposed rock, followed by a
deadly mix of ice and rock at 7,600m.”
According to their words, the climbers fixed a total of 1.2 kilometers ropes in the technically difficult passages to the summit. Between Camp 3 and the summit, there was no suitable place to pitch a tent, which made a 20-hour summit day necessary, they said. In total, the quintet spent twelve days on the mountain before returning to base camp.
In addition to Abdul Joshi, the team included Hameed Ullah, Faryad Karim, Mansoor Karim, and Nisar Ahmed. They are all mountain guides from Abdul’s hometown of Shimshal in the Hunza District of northern Pakistan. “This success would not have been possible without the exceptional strength, skill, and unity of the Shimshal Mountain Guides team,” said Joshi. “On such unforgiving mountains, you don’t just need climbers – you need brothers who understand the risks and climb with heart.”
Route finder and climate activist
Abdul began his career – like many Pakistani mountaineers – as a high-altitude porter for foreign expeditions before he began to pursue his own goals and earned the nickname “The Pathfinder” among his compatriots.
In 2021, he and a Pakistani team made the first ascent of a granite tower over 6,000 meters high in the Passu Cones massif. He is also considered the first to have crossed two high passes in the Karakoram. He has also participated in several rescue operations for mountaineers who found themselves in distress in the region.
In 2021, Abdul Joshi and Sirbaz Khan became the first Pakistanis to reach the summit of the eight-thousander Annapurna I in western Nepal. A year later, Joshi also scaled Mount Everest. In 2024, he stood on the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on earth. “But Tirich Mir stands out as one of the most technical and dangerous climbs I’ve ever attempted,” Abdul said.
With his climbs, Joshi also wants to draw attention to the consequences of climate change on the world’s highest mountains. “As mountains melt and the world warms, may our footsteps remind others to protect what’s still left,” reads the expedition report of the Tirich Mir team.
Sirbaz Kahn also summited Tirich Mir
According to Pakistani media reports, Sirbaz Kahn also scaled Tirich Mir on Tuesday to mark the 75th anniversary of the first ascent of the mountain by Norwegian climbers.
Khan became the first Pakistani to scale all 14 eight-thousanders in fall 2024. But that wasn’t enough for Sirbaz. In spring 2025, he completed his eight-thousander collection without bottled oxygen.
On Tirich Mir, Sirbaz Khan – like Abdul Joshi a good two weeks earlier – led a team consisting exclusively of Pakistani mountaineers.
