Nahida Manzoor, 26, from Zewan, Srinagar, on Tuesday became the first Kashmiri woman to successfully summit the Mount Everest. The news about Nahida’s successful summit was made public by Transcend Adventures, the company with which she had gone for her maiden attempt to scale the Everest. The Fourth summit of the day is Nahida Manzoor along with her Sherpa Guide Nima Kancha. Nahida has been passionate about snow peaks and took to the mountains at a very young age,” Transcend Adventures posted on their official Facebook page.
Nahida and her group left from Everest Base camp for the summit on Saturday and on Tuesday she scaled the peak. It will take her at least two days to return to the base camp.
“At present we don’t have full details about the summit as the communication on south side is not great. She was part of five member mountaineers apart from Sherpas. Tomorrow morning we can provide full details,” Transcend Adventures official Kamlesh told Greater Kashmir.Nahida had on 4 March started crowd funding to support her dream journey.
Soon after Greater Kashmir carried her story about crowd funding, TCI Max came forward to sponsor part of her journey and then Deputy Commissioner Srinagar also sponsored her. He then played pivotal role in helping her to get further sponsorship from J&K State Sports Council.
Mount Everest, at 8,848 metres (29,029 ft), is the world’s highest mountain and a particularly desirable peak for mountaineers. More than 4,000 people have scaled the summit since Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered the mountain in 1953. Hundreds have also perished. Apart from technical hazards and physical ability, the cost of the climb—ranging between $25,000 and $40,000—also discourages many.
Nahida completed her Basic Mountaineering Course and Advance Mountaineering Course (ABVIMAS) from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM).
She has also done Special Mountaineering Course and Method of Instructions both from NIM. She has so far scaled the 6001-metre-high Mount Deo Tibba-Manali and Friendship Peak of Himachal Pradesh (height 5289 metres). In Kashmir she has scaled Mount Mahadev and Mount Tatakooti.
Before leaving for the expedition Nahida had told Greater Kashmir that it was her dream to scale the Everest since she was 10.
“When I started there were hardly any women who went for the expeditions, trekking and not to think about undertaking training courses in mountaineering. Now the things have changed and I am seeing more and more girls joining adventure sport,” she had said.
