Mountaineering history

Pakistan's women are scaling new heights – literally, in the case of Samina Baig and Naila Kiani. On Friday, the whole nation joined the two women in celebration after the duo became the first Pakistani women to climb K2 – the world's second highest peak. The exceptional feat by Samina comes almost nine years after she became the first Pakistani woman to conquer Everest, the world's highest peak. With this latest achievement Samina, 31, who hails from Shimshal, a remote village in Hunza, has further consolidated her reputation as an ace climber. She is not just the first Pakistani woman to scale Everest and K2 but is the first climber from the country to have scaled seven summits in seven continents. Friday was indeed a red-letter day for mountaineering, especially for women climbers. Samina and Naila weren't the only female climbers to rewrite history. Women mountaineers from Iran, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Oman also became the first women from their respective countries to summit the 28,251-foot K2, which is known as the 'savage mountain' because of its steep slopes and high winds.

While Samina has been duly celebrated as Pakistan's mountaineering queen, the astonishing feat by Naila should also be appreciated. She summited K2 just hours after Samina completed her ascent. Dubai-based Naila is a young mother and last year scaled the 26,362-ft Gasherbrum-II in Pakistan, becoming the first woman from her country to achieve this feat. Samina and Naila have certainly added to the rising interest in mountaineering in Pakistan. The country is home to five of the world's 14 peaks higher than 8,000 metres. Some of them like K2 are counted among the most challenging. K2 is considered much more difficult to conquer than the more famous Everest because of its notorious weather. Since 1954, it has been conquered by just 425 people including 20 women. In contrast, more than 6000 climbers have summited Everst since 1953.

Pakistan has over the years produced world class mountaineers like Sabir Nazir and Mohammad Ali Sadpara. In recent times, the likes of Sirbaz Khan and Sheroze Kashif have been making the headlines. The list is likely to grow. On Friday out of the 100 or so climbers who summited K2, many were Pakistanis. Apart from Samina and Naila, the other Pakistanis who reached the top included Sirbaz Khan, Fida Ali, Eid Mohammad, Sohail Sakhi, Bulbul Karim, Ahmed Baig, Rizwan Dad, Waqar Ali, Shah Doulat, Shah Shimshali, Wajidullah Nagri, Akber Hussain Sadpara, Abid Hussain Sadpara, Zakir Sadpara, Ashraf Sadpara and Inayat. The numbers show the increasing interest in mountaineering. The authorities should capitalize on this and the government should support this extreme sport by providing more and more facilities to climbers. We are unfortunately criminally lagging behind in recognizing just how much we can do with this potential.