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Pakistan climbing season reaches new heights

Published

2 years ago

Farwa

Pakistan enjoys bumper climbing season with around 1,400 foreign mountaineers bidding to scale its lofty peaks.
There were 57 expeditions planned for 23 Pakistan peaks this season.
Secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan Karrar Haidri says climbers this year include 90 women.

SKARDU: Pakistan is enjoying a bumper climbing season with around 1,400 foreign mountaineers bidding to scale its lofty peaks — including hundreds on the 8,611-metre (28,251-feet) K2, the world’s second-highest.

“It is a record number,” Raja Nasir Ali Khan, tourism minister of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, told AFP.

The country is home to five of the world’s 14 mountains higher than 8,000 metres, and climbing them all is considered the ultimate achievement of any mountaineer.

Karrar Haidri, secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, told AFP there were 57 expeditions planned for 23 Pakistan peaks this season — with 370 climbers having a crack at K2, known as “the savage mountain”.

Besides being far more technically difficult to climb than Everest, weather conditions are notoriously fickle on K2, which has only been scaled by 425 people since 1954.

More than 6,000 people have climbed Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reached the top in 1953 — some of them multiple times.

Haidri said climbers this year include 90 women — including at least two Pakistanis aiming to become the country’s first to scale K2.

Russian Oxana Morneva is leading a team on the mountain, having failed in her own attempt in 2012 when she was forced back after injuring her knee.

“My rope was broken by falling rocks,” she told AFP.

She said she had no apprehension about returning.

“When we go to the mountain we have to be peaceful inside, and we have to know what we are doing,” she added.

Around 200 climbers will attempt to scale the 8,051-metre Broad Peak, while similar numbers will try Gasherbrum-I (8,080 metres) and Gasherbrum-II (8,035 metres).

A 36-year-old Norwegian climber, Kristin Harila, is also aiming to reach the world’s 14 highest mountain summits in record time.

Having already climbed seven peaks of over 8,000 metres, Harila hopes to match, if not beat, Nepali adventurer Nirmal Purja’s ambitious six months and six days record.

The summer climbing season that started in early June lasts until late August.

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The PML-N Punjab chapter convenes today to discuss organizational issues.

Published

12 hours ago

Farwa

Former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif, has called a meeting of the PML-N Punjab chapter for today (Friday).

The conference was called by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, who reportedly gave the president of the party’s Punjab chapter, Rana Sanaullah, a call to call a meeting of the party’s provincial officials.

Nawaz Sharif is now visiting China.

According to sources, Nawaz Sharif’s leadership role and organizational issues inside the PML-N Punjab would be discussed at the meeting. The meeting’s agenda may also include discussions about the possible growth of the federal and Punjabi cabinets.

According to other sources, Nawaz Sharif gave Rana Sanaullah instructions to gather information on political and organizational positions in Punjab as well as to revitalize the party at the local level.

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Punjab Assembly session: Committee on wheat imports is formed by the speaker

Published

12 hours ago

Farwa

During the caretaker government, three members of a committee were appointed by Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan to investigate the import of wheat.

Both sides of the wheat procurement controversy engaged in a fierce debate yesterday during the Punjab Assembly session.

A detailed examination into wheat imports during the caretaker government was required by the legislators, who sharply criticized the government’s wheat strategy.

According to the MPAs, the food minister did not develop any policies for obtaining wheat.

Regarding the wheat procurement problem, the opposition is probably going to hold a protest in the house today, Friday.

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Saad Rafiq: Ali Amin Gandapur’s threat to storm Islamabad is a major issue.

Published

12 hours ago

Farwa

Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has threatened to storm Islamabad, according to Khawaja Saad Rafique, a former minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). This is a very serious situation.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administration has reportedly launched attacks on the federal capital in the past in an attempt to seize Islamabad, according to Saad Rafiq on the social media platform X (previously Twitter).

“However, PTI got nothing and it resulted in creating chaos, hatred and economic destruction,” he continued.

He added, “If the anarchists attack Islamabad to occupy it this time too, it will become impossible for them to return as rulers.”

According to the leader of the PML-N, fascist behavior will no longer be accepted, and the dirty politics of violence, fire, and ransacking will no longer be effective.

The PTI, he said, has to act rationally and refrain from inciting another May 9.