Karachi
Adriana Brownlee, a 21-year-old British climber, has further improved her record of being the youngest climber to have summited most peaks of over 8,000 metres by scaling K2 — her 10th peak of over 8,000 metres — two more than Pakistan’s Shehroze Kashif.
Adriana has also become the youngest ever Brit-ish climber to summit K2. Her team confirmed that Adriana, along with Gelje Sherpa, summited K2 at 6:30am yesterday. She had attempted to summit the peak with supplementary oxygen but changed the plan.
“She went to C4 without O2 and plan was to summit with no O2 — but overnight snow meant Adri and Gelje had to trailblaze the route from C4 to the summit — so long and difficult,” Adriana’s team informed this correspondent.
“Gelje and I were actually going to attempt a summit without O2, however, after reaching 8,000 metres without sleeping, the snow in the night just didn’t stop and it was then impossible for us to trailblaze without O2. But now I know I can do it,” Adri posted on her social media.
Adri had earlier summited The Broad Peak and Nanga Parbat in Pakistan but it is unlikely she will summit Gasherbrum I and II this season.
The 21-year-old wants to become the youngest mountaineer in the world to summit all 14 peaks above 8,000 metres.
Gasherbrum I (8,080 metres) and II (8,034 me-tres) in Pakistan, Cho Oyu (8,188m) in Nepal and Shishapangma (8,027m) are the remaining mountains for her to achieve the title.
Pakistan’s Shehroze Kashif — who is one year younger than Adriana – has so far summited eight peaks of 8,000 metres and is currently on route to summit GI and GII.
If Shehroze manages to summit both this season, he will be able to surpass Adriana’s record of the youngest mountaineer to summit most eight-thousanders.
Like Adriana, Shehroze is also aiming to become the youngest mountaineer in the world to summit all the 14 peaks of over 8,000 metres in the world.
Adriana has climbed Everest, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, Annapurna 1, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak and K2 whereas Shehroze has scaled Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak and Nanga Parbat.—Agencies