Stories
Explore Stories That Inspire Climbs
Sea to Summit: Ikramul Hasan Shakil’s Historic Human-Powered Ascent to Everest
In the spring of 2025, 🇧🇩 Ikramul Hasan Shakil stood at the very top of the world the summit of Mount Everest as dawn broke over the Himalayas. 31 years old. Breathing thin air 8,848.86 meters above sea level. But this was not just a summit. This was the final step of a journey that began far, far below at sea level, where waves lapped at the shores of Inani Beach in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Eighty-four days earlier, on February 25, Shakil dipped his feet into the Bay of Bengal and began walking. Walking toward the roof of the world. […]
The Nanga Parbat Massacre: Terror on the Mountain
On this day, 22 June in the summer of 2013, beneath the vast, icy walls of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan’s second-highest peak, a storm gathered. But this was not the kind that climbers feared. It was neither wind nor snow. It was terrorism. On the night of June 22, the mountain’s base camp, a place of rest, became the site of a massacre. Gunmen dressed in paramilitary uniforms reportedly disguised as Gilgit Scouts stormed the camp under the cover of darkness. Ten foreign climbers and a local Pakistani cook were executed in cold blood. It was the first time in Pakistan’s […]
Davo Karničar: The Man Who Skied Everest
In the autumn of 2000, while the world looked up in awe at Everest’s gleaming crown, a man stood on its summit — not just to climb it, but to descend it. Davo Karničar, a Slovenian alpinist and extreme skier, clipped into his skis at 8,848.86 meters — the highest point on Earth. Around him, the jet stream howled. The snow was bullet-hard. The mountain loomed in its most unforgiving form. But Davo wasn’t afraid. He was ready. On October 7, after four days of climbing, he reached the summit between 6:00 and 7:00 am, alongside his teammates Franc Oderlap, […]
Ang Tharkay – The Father Of Modern Sherpa Climbers
Waking up on a frosty morning at first light on Ang Tharkay’s farm, south of Kathmandu, in 1975, is a memory that remains vivid in my mind. With a broad smile, he poured me tea, made in the Sherpa manner with tea, sugar, and milk boiled together. We had a breakfast of chapati and eggs from his farm. He had risen before daybreak and had milked cows and goats. Ang Tharkay was about 69 and I twenty seven. We talked of the great climbers he went on expeditions with: Eric Shipton, Sir Edmund Hillary, Maurice Herzog, Gaston Rebuffat, Lionmel Lachnel, Lionel Terray, Cmdr. Kohli and others. You […]