GILGIT: Two Pakistani climbers separately summited the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, and fourth highest, Lhotse, in Nepal on Monday morning.

Abdul Joshi from the Shimshal valley of Hunza in Gilgit-Baltistan, who scaled the 8,849-metre Mount Everest, is part of a 13-member expedition team, led by Nepalese mountaineer Mingma Gyalje Sherpa (Mingma G). While 20-year-old Shehroze Kashif set the record for becoming the youngest mountaineer in the world to summit four highest peaks after scaling the 8,516m Lhotse.

Dawa Futi Sherpa, the manager of the trekking company facilitating Joshi, told Dawn that the team included Liu Wenwei, Hai Qiannan, Feng Jianfei and Zhan Xiongchang from China; Anna Surysheva from Russia; Nathan Peter Longman from Australia; Marina Cortes from Poland; Gabriel Tarso from Brazil; Montana from Thailand; Raju Lama, Ramkumar Shrestha and Suraj Paudyal from Nepal.

Dawa Futi confirmed to Dawn that the expedition team reached the top of the world’s highest mountain at 6:40am on Monday. She said according to Pakistan Standard Time, the team started the summit push from camp-4 at 9pm on Sunday. After the summit, they returned to camp-4 and will descend for camp-2 on Tuesday (today), and return to the base camp on Wednesday.

Karrar Haidri, the secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan, in a statement congratulated Joshi for the successful feat.

Joshi is also the first Pakistani to summit Annapurna, the tenth highest mountain in the world at 8,091m, in 2021. He also led a 12-member Pakistani team to the first-ever summit of Passu Cones.

Not only has Joshi summited a number of peaks, he also explored and discovered places that are still unknown and unreachable for others. Known in the community as the “Path Finder” for his extraordinary talent of finding new routes, Joshi was the first person in the world to cross FN/Joshi Pass and Verjerav Pass.

Meanwhile, Shehroze Kashif from Lahore, who was also part of an expedition team, summited the fourth-highest peak in the world, Lhotse, directly from camp-3. Kashif and his team had started the summit push on Sunday.

Earlier on May 5, the young Kashif had summited the 8,586-metre Kanchenjunga. He also holds other records, becoming the youngest Pakistani to scale the Everest -- the world’s highest peak -- on May 6, 2021, and the youngest person in the world to climb K2 -- the second highest mountain -- on July 27 the same year, peaking both the mountains within a span of nearly three months.

Following the Monday morning climb, Kashif set a world record by becoming the youngest mountaineer ever to summit the four highest peaks of the world.

He is also the youngest Pakistani to have climbed the Broad Peak (8,047m) at the age of 17. He used supplemental oxygen during his climbs at the Broad Peak, Everest and K2. Kashif first started climbing mountains at the age of 11 when he summited the Makra Peak (3,885m), followed by Musa Ka Musalla (4,080m).

He continued his passion with Gondogoro La K2 Base Camp trek at the age of 14, and at 15 he was able to complete the Khurdopin Pass (5,800m) trek. At 18, he did Khusar Gang, a 6,050m peak, Alpine style.

Fellow climbers, politicians and journalists congratulated both the mountaineers for their feats.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2022