GILGIT: Pakistani climber Shehroze Kashif became the world’s youngest mountaineer to summit 13 of the 14 highest peaks by conquering Cho Oyu (8,201 metres) in Tibet, China, on Friday.
As part of an 11-member expedition team from Seven Summit Treks, he reached the basecamp on Oct 1 and began ascending to higher camps, commencing the summit push on Thursday evening.
Karrar Haidri, Secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, told Dawn that Mr Kashif achieved this remarkable feat at 3:15am PST. Mr Kashif’s next challenge is to ascend Shishapangma, an 8,027m peak in China.
Mr Haidri expressed his congratulations and pride, stating, “If he succeeds, he will have ascended all 14 of these massive 8,000m mountains, which is amazing.”
On Mr Kashif’s official Facebook page, a post declared that with this incredible feat, he had become the youngest climber in the world to conquer 13 peaks above 8,000m, all at the age of 23.
Mr Kashif, hailing from Lahore, has already summited 12 eight-thousanders, earning the nickname “The Broad Boy” after scaling Broad Peak (8,051m) at the age of 17.
His mountain-climbing journey began at the age of 11, and he achieved numerous milestones, including becoming the youngest Pakistani to summit Mount Everest (8,849m) on May 11, 2021, and the world’s youngest climber to summit K2 on July 27, 2021, at the age of 19.
On May 5, 2022, he became the first Pakistani to reach the summit of Kangchenjunga (8,586m) and, on May 16, 2022, summited the world’s fourth-highest peak, Mount Lhotse (8,516m), in Nepal.
In August 2022, Mr Kashif also summited Gasherbrum-II (8,035m) and Gasherbrum-I, the 11th highest mountain in the world at 8,080m. In July 2022, he and Fazal Ali went missing between Camp 4 and Camp 3 after successfully summiting Nanga Parbat, but were recovered shortly afterwards.
Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2023
