Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistani mountaineer Shehroze Kashif moved closer to his goal of becoming the youngest to climb all 14 eight-thousanders in the world after he successfully summited 8,167m high Dhaulagiri-I in Nepal – the seventh-highest mountain in the world. Kashif started his final summit push last night and reached the top of Dhaulagiri-I early Wednesday morning to take his tally of eight-thousanders to 12. The 21-year-old has now become the youngest to climb 12 peaks of over 8,000m in the world. There are a total of 14 such peaks and Shehroze is to climb two more peaks, Cho-Oyu (Nepal-China) and Shishapangma (China), to achieve his target.

If Kashif achieves the feat then he will surpass the record of Nepal’s Mingma David Sherpa who currently holds the title of the youngest person to climb all 14 peaks of over 8,000m. The Nepalese climber achieved the feat at the age of 30 years. With the Dhaulagiri-I summit, Kashif has become the youngest Pakistani to scale the mountain. Before him, a renowned climber from Hunza Valley, Sirbaz Ali Khan was the only one from the country to stand atop the 8,167m mountain.

Moreover, Kashif has also become the second youngest in the world to climb Dhaulagiri-I after Britain’s Adriana Brownlee. Brownlee was 20 years and 10 months when she scaled the seventh-highest peak in 2021. Known as “Broad Boy” for his feat of climbing 8051m high Broad Peak at the age of 17, Kashif holds the record of being the youngest climber to summit several peaks of over 8,000m including K2 and Kangchenjunga.

After summiting Broad Peak in July 2019, the young climber scaled Mount Everest at the age of 19 in 2021. In the same year, he went to the top of K2 and Manaslu. In 2022, Kashif successfully climbed Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum-I and Gasherbrum-II. Earlier this year, the young mountaineer went to the top of Annapurna. The climber had summited the Annapurna in April of this year along with Pakistani climber Niala Kiani. However, both Pakistani climbers were rescued from the peak which stands at 8,091 metres, after their descent was disrupted due to bad weather.