14 eight-thousanders Archive - Adventure Mountain

14. October 202514. October 2025

Afsaneh Hesamifard is the first Iranian woman on all 14 eight-thousanders

Afsaneh Hesamifard at the summit of Cho Oyu

I must admit that I have almost given up trying to keep track of who has climbed how many eight-thousanders, when, and in what style.

There are now so many commercial expeditions that it is – at least for me – hardly possible to keep track of them all and verify their success stories, which are mostly published on social media. The periods in which paying clients of commercial operators “tick off” the 14 eight-thousanders are also getting shorter and shorter. Therefore, I make no claim to completeness.

Today, Chhang Dawa Sherpa, board member of the Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks, announced via Instagram the summit success of a five-member team on the 8,188-meter-high Cho Oyu in Tibet. Afsaneh Hesamifard was also part of the team, completing her collection of the 14 eight-thousanders (with bottled oxygen) – the first woman from Iran to do so.

It took her three and a half years to achieve the feat. Cho Oyu was Afsaneh’s third eight-thousander this year, after Kangchenjunga in spring and Dhaulagiri in fall.

19. May 202519. May 2025

Sirbaz Khan – the first Pakistani to climb all eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen

Sirbaz Khan (on an earlier summit success)

“I am delighted for Sirbaz that he has now also completed the 14 eight-thousanders ‘topless’,” writes Ralf Dujmovits, Germany’s most successful high-altitude mountaineer. “My heartfelt congratulations to him.”

Sirbaz Khan has fulfilled his self-proclaimed “Mission 14”: On Sunday at 11.50 a.m. Nepalese time, the 37-year-old reached the summit of Kangchenjunga at 8,586 meters with the team from expedition operator Imagine Nepal. Sirbaz also scaled the third highest mountain on earth without a breathing mask. This makes him the first Pakistani to climb all 14 eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen.

30. November 202430. November 2024

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa: “14 peaks not important as a record”

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa on the summit of Shishapangma

Anyone who regularly reads my blog knows that I have a very distanced relationship with supposed “records” in mountaineering. I make an exception for Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, because she is a true pioneer of women’s mountaineering. For more than a decade, she has been campaigning for women in her home country of Nepal to be given the opportunity to climb mountains and earn a living there. On 9 October, Dawa Yangzum summited the 8,027-meter-high Shishapangma in Tibet, becoming the first woman from Nepal to have saled all 14 eight-thousanders.

First Asian woman with an international mountain guide certificate

The Sherpani, who grew up with three brothers and two sisters in a small mountain village in the Rolwaling Valley, had already set milestones before. In 2014, she reached the summit of K2 with her compatriots Maya Sherpa and Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita. They were the first women from Nepal to scale the second highest mountain on earth. In 2017, Dawa Yangzum became the first woman in Asia to receive an international mountain guide certificate and has been working regularly as a mountain guide ever since, among others on Mount Everest.

Since 2020, she has been offering climbing courses for young Nepalese women in the Khumbu region. She herself has lived in Boulder in the USA for years and works for the expedition operator Alpine Ascents International. The 34-year-old Nepalese answered my questions.

Dawa Yangzum, first of all, congratulations on completing your collection of eight-thousanders. Would you highlight one of the 14 ascents in particular?

9. October 202410. October 2024

More than a dozen newcomers to the list of climbers with all 14 eight-thousanders

Shishapangma, the only eight-thousander located entirely in Tibet

Today the list of people who have stood on all 14 eight-thousanders has virtually exploded – it has grown by 15 names. The reason was a successful summit day of commercial expeditions on the 8,027-meter-high Shishapagma in Tibet. According to the largest Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks, 29 team members reached the summit of the lowest eight-thousander. Twelve of them completed their collection of eight-thousanders: Nepalese Nima Rinji Sherpa, Mingtemba Sherpa and Lakpa Temba Sherpa, Pakistani Sheroze Kashif, Japanese Naoko Watanabe, Polish Dorota Rasinska-Samocko, British Adriana Brownlee, Russian Alina Pekova, Taiwanese Ko-Erh (called “Grace”) Tseng, French Alasdair McKenzie, Romanian Adrian Laza and Italian Mario Vielmo.

The expedition operator Climbalaya also reported three team members who had now stood on all 14 eight-thousanders after their summit success on Shishapangma: Dawa Yangzum Sherpa and Mingma Tenzing Sherpa from Nepal as well as the Chinese woman He Jing.

4. October 20244. October 2024

Summit successes reported on Shishapangma and Cho Oyu

The first summit successes of the fall season on the eight-thousanders in Tibet are now perfect. The expedition operator Imagine Nepal announced that an eleven-member team led by Mingma Gyalje Sherpa reached the summit of Shishapangma at 8,027 meters today. Five team members had completed their eight-thousand-meter collection, it said: the Nepalese Mingma Gyalje Sherpa and Dawa Gyalje Sherpa, the US-American Tracee Lee Metcalfe, the Japanese Naoki Ishikawa and the Pakistani Sirbaz Khan.