Pakistan mountaineer Shehroze Kashif to summit Nepal’s Manaslu again

KARACHI: Pakistani mountaineer Shehroze Kashif has announced that he’ll make another attempt to summit Nepal’s Manaslu – the world’s eighth highest peak at 8,163m after a recent controversy over the highest point of the peak in the mountaineer community.

Shehroze was among several mountaineers who summited Manaslu last week. His achievement was celebrated in Pakistan, but a couple of days later, all previous summits were challenged as Nepal’s Mingma Gyalje Sherpa (Mingma-G) had announced achieving the “real summit” at Manaslu.

His claims were supported by videos from another climber and photographer Jackson Grove, who captured some historic and remarkable photographs via drone which he posted on his Instagram and Facebook pages. The pictures revealed the summit ridge of Manaslu in an unprecedented manner.

One of the pictures highlighted the main-summit on the far right showing a clear image of a group of climbers clustered on one side of the mountain, which is said to be “fore-summit”. Meanwhile, Mingma-G and other climbers with him were at the steep below them, heading towards the “real-summit”.

According to a research published on “explorersweb”, many summits on Manaslu were just fore-summits, raising questions on all previous records, specially of those who have summited all 14 eight-thousanders, or are aiming to do so – like Pakistan’s Shehroze.

While there’s no final word on the validity of previous summits yet, the young mountaineer from Lahore has announced that he’ll go again to climb Manaslu.

“I reached the point where everyone was summiting since 1976 in autumn, including the 80% of climbers who have completed their 14-project and are on their way to completing it. So, after I was back in Katmandu, Mingma-G does an amazing job by setting a new achievement and record of crossing that bridge and became the fourth person, including the team, after 1976, to cross that bridge to reach the highest point of the Manaslu,” Shehroze said in a video message on his Instagram.

“I feel pretty confident and pretty satisfied to raise my country's flag on the top of Manaslu. But since after 45 years, a few brave people showed a great amount of courage and made an effort to reach the highest point. I think it's my duty too as I'm a part of the 14 project now. I'm going to be the youngest in the world to summit all the 14 of the highest peaks in the world. It's my duty to come again to Nepal. I'll summit Mansalu again, and this time inshallah, I'll be pushing the real summit,” he announced.

The young climber added that he will not include the latest summit in his 14-project despite having the certificate of summiting Manaslu.

“I will not count this in my 14-project. And, inshallah I'll come again and I will submit the real the summit, the main summit, actually. That achievement will stay forever,” he said.

Meanwhile, another Pakistani mountaineer, Sirbaz Khan – who is also eying summiting all 14 eight-thousanders – has also reportedly said that he’ll summit Manaslu again.

Sirbaz who summited Dhaulagiri Friday morning – his ninth climb of the 14 eight thousanders – had earlier summited Manaslu in 2019.