Sadpara’s life — a tale of incomplete dreams

Noted mountaineer passed away on Monday

GILGIT: Hasan Sadpara, an accomplished climber having climbed six of the world’s tallest peaks including all five peaks above 8,000 meters, had dreamt of scaling the remaining eight of the world’s 14 eight thousanders.

However, his sudden death and lack of financial support meant that these goals remained unfulfilled. Inspired by his father, Sadpara started his mountaineering career back in 1996 when he was 33. But no one could have guessed then the heights he would go on to climb.



Sadpara eventually joined the elite club of Pakistanis who have climbed the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest (8,848m) including the likes of Nazir Sabir and Samina Baig. But his roster of achievements also includes five other eight thousand meter peaks including K-2 (8,611m), Gasherbrum I (8,080m), Gasherbrum II (8,034m), Nanga Parbat (8,126m) and Broad Peak (8,051m).

His feats had earned him the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz.



“I wish someone could support me financially. I have more dreams, but I need money to materialise them,” Sadpara had told The Express Tribune around a year ago.

At that the time he was desperately searching for funds to push for a summit attempt at one of the eight thousanders which had managed to elude him. “Physically, I’m as fit as before, but financial constraints have held me back.”

The towering mountains never intimidated Sadpara, but rather served as a source of inspiration.



“When I look towards the peaks, they seem like a challenge to me and then I can’t resist [the urge to go climbing],” said the lanky climber who has grown up in an area surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world.

After his successful ascent of Everest in 2011, Sadpara hoped that the government would finally wake up to his endeavours and back his expeditions which would only help raise the national flag on more peaks. But it was not to be and he was left disappointed with the lukewarm response by the then Mehdi Shah-led Pakistan Peoples Party regime in G-B.

He went on to complain that the government was even backtracking from its promise of awarding him 10 kanals of land to recognise his efforts in ascending  the world’s highest peak. In protest, he even resigned from a job offered to him by the government. But he later recanted and took his resignation back and returned service admittedly half-heartedly.

Sadpara’s dream of starting a mountaineering school for children, especially in his native village of Sadpara was dealt a severe blow when British-Pakistani banker Bushra Farooqui died while trekking in Wadi Sameeni in Oman in the last week of August 2015.

“I can’t believe she is no longer with us,” he said soon after her death. Sadpara had been working with the 42-year-old to build the school.

Farooqui had been running two primary schools in the region.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2016.