The Karakoram climbing season is on, and Islamabad has once again become the Mecca for Ace mountaineers. Although the latest operation going in the capital has marred the activities as compared to last year, but still there is some fresh news in. One of the most refreshing aspect of the news from the camps of climbers in the Capital is the participation of Pakistani women in extreme climbing.

Climbers currently arriving in Islamabad include the American led Pakistani Women’s climbing school. Pakistani mountaineer Hasil Shah . The team includes a Pakistani woman climber Dur Begum from Shimshal, who summited Minglig Sar together with Spanish female climber Esther Sabadell (Nanga Parbat summit in 2005) and her mate Valentin in the first ever joint expedition of Pakistan and a foreign team in which a woman climber from the Northern Areas participated.

Dur is daughter-in-law of K2 climber Mehrban Shah and a widow. Her husband Ghulam Ali Shah died in 2004 when hit by an avalanche at Chafchingol pass in Shimshal

Dur became the second woman from Pakistan to scale Minglig Sar on June 11 after Farzana Jabeen from the same village who was the first to scale the peak along with her two brothers in 2006

Courtesy: Explorersweb