Sirbaz Ali Khan becomes first Pakistani to summit 10 eight-thousanders

KARACHI: Pakistan's ace mountaineer Sirbaz Ali Khan Saturday became the first-ever Pakistani to climb 10 of the world’s 14 highest peaks above 8,000 metres – also known as 8-thousanders – after he successfully scaled 8,586-metre Kanchenjunga, raising Pakistan’s flag at the summit of the third highest peak in the world for the second time in three days.

Sirbaz, 32, started his push to summit Friday night and reached the peak at around 7am Pakistan time Saturday, according to officials of the Alpine Club of Pakistan. He was a part of a team led by Nepalese mountaineer Mingma G.

Sirbaz hails from Hunza in Gilgit-Baltistan. He started his climbing career in 2016 after spending time on mountains as low-altitude porter. His first 8,000 metres summit was the Nanga Parbat when he climbed the 8,125-metre high mountain in an off-season summit in 2017. He later went to climb 8,611-metre high K-2 in 2018, and Broad Peak, which has a height of 8,047 metres, in 2019.

In the same year, he became the first Pakistani to summit Mount Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain at 8,516 metres, in Nepal, without the use of supplementary oxygen. His next climb in 2019 was 8,163 metres Manaslu.

Last year, he climbed the 8,091 metres high Anapurna mountain, 8,848 metres high Mount Everest and 8,035 metres high Gasherbrum-II before climbing his record-breaking 9th 8-thousander, 8167 metres high Dhaulagiri. Sirbaz is aiming to become the first Pakistani to climb all 14 of the world’s highest peaks. He now eyes climbing Makalu this month and G1 later in the summer. After which he will be left with Cho Oyu and Shishapangma to climb of which expedition dates are not yet decided.

Communicating from the summit, Sirbaz thanked the whole nation for its support and requested prayers for a safe return. Earlier, while leaving the camp 2 on Kanchenjunga, Sirbaz had said in a communication that it hadn’t been easy on that mountain and of course it was never going to be. “Climbing on the third highest mountain in the world is no walk in the park. You have to give your absolute best and rightly so. Why else should you be able do it? It is the same in life and it is the same on these high mountains, to get something extraordinary, you have to give something even bigger,” he had said. “These last few weeks have been absolutely challenging. This mountain has tested our limits and we have given our best, for that’s all that one can do. Now that I have completed all my rotations, I look forward to the final summit push. I feel strong and confident and I hope for the best," he had added.