Famous Mountaineers From Gilgit-Baltistan

The famous mountaineers from Gilgit-Baltistan come from a handful of villages that travellers pass through: Aliabad and Shimshal in Hunza, Sadpara above Skardu and Hushe in Ghanche. Between them they include the first Pakistanis on K2 and Everest, the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat, and the first Pakistani to climb all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks.

This guide gives the climbs and dates that matter, in rough order of time, and says where each village is.

Amir Mehdi: the porter who made two first ascents possible

Amir Mehdi, born in Hunza in 1913, was a high-altitude porter on the two expeditions that opened Pakistan's highest peaks. On Nanga Parbat in 1953 he and Haji Baig supported Hermann Buhl's summit climb and helped the frostbitten Austrian down afterwards. Our post on Hermann Buhl and Nanga Parbat in 1953 tells that story.

A year later, on the Italian K2 expedition, he and Walter Bonatti carried oxygen up for the summit pair and were left to spend the night in the open on an ice ledge at about 8,100 metres, then the highest bivouac anyone had survived. Mehdi was wearing ordinary army boots. He lost all his toes to frostbite and spent eight months in hospital. He died in Hunza in 1999.

Ashraf Aman: the first Pakistani on K2

Ashraf Aman, born in 1938 and trained as an engineer in Karachi, reached the summit of K2 on 9 August 1977 with a joint Japanese and Pakistani expedition. It was only the second ascent of the mountain. He later ran his own trekking and expedition company and led a French and Pakistani expedition to Nanga Parbat in 1997.

Nazir Sabir: K2's west ridge and Everest

Nazir Sabir, from Raminj in upper Hunza, climbed K2 on 7 August 1981 with a Waseda University expedition from Japan, by a new route on the west ridge. In 1982 he climbed Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak in about a week, in alpine style, with Sher Khan and Reinhold Messner, and he added Gasherbrum I in 1992.

On 17 May 2000 he became the first Pakistani on the summit of Everest. He sat in the Gilgit-Baltistan assembly for Hunza from 1994 and was president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan from 2004 to 2010.

Little Karim: Hushe's most famous porter

Mohammad Karim, born in the Hushe valley around 1950, went to Skardu in 1976 to find work as a porter and was turned away by one team because he was so small. A Spanish expedition short of men took him on, and he reached the top of a 7,000-metre peak with them. He went on to climb Gasherbrum II without supplementary oxygen.

The French film-maker Laurent Chevallier made a documentary about him in 1985 and another, Mr Karim, in 1997. He died on 4 April 2022. Hushe, at the roadhead for Masherbrum and the Gondogoro La, still supplies porters and guides to many expeditions on that side.

Hassan Sadpara: six of the fourteen

Hassan Sadpara came from Sadpara village, above Skardu near Satpara Lake. He climbed Nanga Parbat in 1999 and K2 on 27 July 2004, completed all five of Pakistan's 8,000-metre peaks, and reached the summit of Everest on 11 May 2011. That made him the first Pakistani to climb six of the fourteen. He died in Rawalpindi on 21 November 2016.

Muhammad Ali Sadpara: winter on Nanga Parbat

Muhammad Ali Sadpara was born in the same village on 2 February 1976 and began as a high-altitude porter. He climbed eight of the 8,000-metre peaks, four of them in a single calendar year.

On 26 February 2016, with Simone Moro of Italy and Alex Txikon of Spain, he made the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat, a climb that had defeated expeditions for decades.

He disappeared on K2 on 5 February 2021 during a winter attempt with John Snorri of Iceland and Juan Pablo Mohr of Chile. His son Sajid, climbing with them, turned back before the final push and survived. The three were declared dead on 18 February, and Ali Sadpara's body was found on 26 July 2021, about 300 metres below the Bottleneck. Our Ali Sadpara village guide covers the place he came from.

Samina Baig: Everest, the Seven Summits and K2

Samina Baig was born in Shimshal on 19 September 1990 and trained by her brother, Mirza Ali. On 19 May 2013 she became the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest. She finished the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent, on 24 July 2014 on Elbrus.

In July 2022 she became the first Pakistani woman on the summit of K2, and in July 2023 she climbed Nanga Parbat.

Shimshal has produced a long list of high-altitude climbers for a village of about 2,000 people: Rajab Shah, who climbed all five of Pakistan's 8,000-metre peaks, Mehrban Shah, and Abdul Joshi, who with Sirbaz Khan made the first Pakistani ascent of Annapurna in April 2021. See our Shimshal valley guide.

Sirbaz Khan: all fourteen, then all fourteen without oxygen

Sirbaz Khan, from Aliabad in Hunza, began with Nanga Parbat in October 2017 and K2 in July 2018. He was the first Pakistani on Lhotse and Manaslu in 2019 and on Annapurna in 2021.

He completed the fourteen 8,000-metre peaks on Shishapangma on 3 October 2024, the first Pakistani to do so. In May 2025, on Kangchenjunga, he became the first Pakistani to have climbed all fourteen without supplementary oxygen.

Sajid Sadpara: the next generation

Sajid Sadpara, Ali's son, has climbed K2 twice. He reached the summits of Manaslu in September 2022, Annapurna in April 2023, Everest in May 2023 and Nanga Parbat in June 2023 without supplementary oxygen, the first Pakistani to climb Annapurna and Everest that way. In July 2023 he led a team that cleared rubbish from K2.

Where the villages are

• Aliabad is the main town of central Hunza, on the Karakoram Highway about 7 km from Karimabad. See our Aliabad guide.
• Shimshal is about 54 km up a rough jeep road from Passu, at 3,113 metres.
• Sadpara is near Satpara Lake, about 10 km from Skardu on the road to Deosai.
• Hushe is the last village in its valley, north of Khaplu in Ghanche.

None of these needs a special permit for Pakistani visitors, though you will show your CNIC at checkposts. If you visit, remember these are farming villages and not museums: there is a monument to Ali Sadpara in Gilgit, but in the villages themselves the climbers' families live ordinary lives. Ask before photographing homes.

Why this matters on a trip north

The guides and porters who work on the K2 base camp trek and the Baltoro very often come from Sadpara, Hushe and Askole, and in Hunza from Shimshal. Hiring locally keeps that tradition alive. Our guide to hiring guides and porters in Gilgit-Baltistan explains how to do it fairly, and the 8,000-metre peaks of Pakistan guide covers the mountains themselves.

Frequently asked questions