Naila Kiani became the first Pakistani woman to successfully climb the 8,163-meter-tall Manaslu Peak, which is the eighth-highest mountain in the world located in Western Nepal.
After living in Dubai for eight years, Naila Kiani made history in climbing by achieving an incredible feat. She not only became the first woman from Pakistan to summit Nanga Parbat in a single day, but she also accomplished the amazing feat of scaling seven peaks rising beyond 8000 meters. Her incredible story of tenacity and success is an inspiration to many, especially Muslim women who want to be mountaineers.
Naila Kiani, a Pakistani mountaineer residing in Dubai, appears to adhere to the same philosophy as she ascends top after peak, breaking records in the process.
Naila abruptly changed careers and became a professional mountaineer after being a successful banker. She has set a lofty goal for herself to climb all 14 of the “eight-thousanders,” or mountains rising to a height of 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) above sea level.
The former banker is the first person from Pakistan to have climbed ten summits out of those so far. Her accomplishment of climbing all ten mountains in under 2.5 years is even more astounding. Naila climbed seven of the world’s fourteen highest peaks in 2023 alone.
Naila had planned what she believed to be a one-time trip to Gasherbrum II (G2) during her maternity leave in 2021. She had no idea that this journey would swiftly transform into an odyssey filled with passion, love, and perseverance that would ultimately enable her to climb numerous snow-capped summits.
When Naila set out on her first summit of the G2, “I had no plans of actually reaching the top; my goal was to cross just about 7,000 meters,” she says. “But when I went for the K2 summit, I eventually quit my job because I had become a professional mountaineer by then, which required more dedication.”
The Dubai resident adopted a lifestyle of living on the edge as she battled her way through perilous snowy terrains, avoided sharp crevices, faced freezing winds that could reach speeds of up to 70 km/h, and even found herself stranded at Annapurna Mountain, which is known as one of the world’s deadliest mountains, at an elevation of about 7000 meters.
It goes without saying that there have been ups and downs on these excursions, both literally and figuratively.
Lack of funding is one of the biggest obstacles faced by Pakistani mountaineers, and since climbing mountains is an expensive sport, many aspirations are left unfulfilled in the Himalayan foothills. Even though Naila had to pay for her first journey to Gasherbrum II, she was nonetheless lucky since, unlike many other Pakistani mountaineers, she was able to secure sponsors for her subsequent climbs.
For her the challenges begin the minute she step out of the house, because she has to leave her kids alone, and once they begin their climb, her focus is torn between surviving on the mountain and the family she has left behind. Being a woman, Naila feels this factor is all the important, since when she goes on these dangerous expeditions, she leaves behind two young girls and needs ironclad confidence that they will be taken care of in her absence. For this, she gives full marks to her husband, “who’s a great father”, and without him she couldn’t have achieved what she has.
Then of course, there are expected issues of sub-zero temperatures and low oxygen levels.
But she felt one of the biggest challenges when on the mountain is when they learn of a death of a fellow climber. They’ve sent bodies of people who had passed away just few minutes ago, and even people falling off cliffs and getting snowed under avalanches. She had even buried one body of a mountaineer with my co-climber. The body was buried in a glacier but had surfaced when the glacier melted.
Naila is deeply affected by her memories of the Annapurna Summit, where she was forced to flee after going without food for a full day.
They learned that one of their friends had fallen in a crevice as they were leaving the summit. Upon reaching Camp 4, they discovered that food had run out, avalanches had blocked their path, and the rope that was meant to descend had been severed. Ultimately, because of the perilous circumstances, every mountaineer there was evacuated.
As they were leaving the summit, they heard that one of their pals had fallen into a crevasse. When they arrived at Camp 4, they found that supplies of food had run out, avalanches had obstructed their route, and the rope that was supposed to descend had been cut. Eventually, all of the mountaineers there were evacuated due to the dangerous conditions.
When she got married, her husband and she decided that instead of a huge event, they will do a wedding shoot at K2 basecamp. Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, her husband had to turn back from Skardu, but she went ahead, and did the shoot anyway. There was a small celebration at the basecamp with the people who were there. But the actual images of the shoot surfaced much later and went viral.
Naila’s ten or so years of living in Dubai have also provided her with the inspiration and encouragement she needs to pursue her vocation. The United Arab Emirates, home to hundreds of different nationalities, has created an amazing community infrastructure that offers people a variety of venues to pursue their interests and aspirations.
Naila continues to train while balancing several new business endeavors as she gets ready for her next adventure—to summit Shishapangma in Tibet, China. She survived an avalanche in October of last year, forcing her and another climber Sirbaz Khan to abandon their plans to reach the summit. This will be her second try to climb the mountain.
What comes next Shishapangma on the agenda? to climb Makalu, Dhaulagiri, and Kangchenjunga, the remaining three eight-thousanders. As they say in song lyrics, “ain’t no mountain high enough” for Naila.
