Conquering Everest: Climber returns to muted recognition

After conquering Everest last month, Hassan Sadpara says he can hoist the Pakistan flag on every peak in the world.

GILGIT:

There ain’t no mountain high enough to receive official recognition from the Pakistani government, for scaling the highest peak.

Or so appears to be the moral of the story for local hero Hassan Sadpara who conquered the world’s highest peak last month.

He says he can hoist the national flag on every peak in the world, only if he gets financial support. The 48-year-old climber from Sadpara, became the latest Pakistani to ascend the 8,840m high Mount Everest in May. He has scaled five other peaks over 8,000m.

“It was a difficult moment, at camp 4, to decide whether to continue the journey, or return,” Sadpara told The Express Tribune by phone from Skardu.

“But I decided to go on as I had only one thought in my mind – to hoist the Pakistani flag on the summit,” he said.

Sadpara said the weather was extremely bad when they reached the last camp before summit, and about 45 other mountaineers had already decided against going up.

Inspired by his father, Sadpara started his mountaineering carrier in 1996 when he was 33. Today, nearly 50, he says he is as fit as he was 15 years ago and wishes to climb the remaining eight of the 14 highest peaks in the world, provided he gets financial support from the government or any other organisation.

Sadpara is the only person from Gilgit-Baltistan to have surpassed all five major peaks in Pakistan. When asked about his reception in Pakistan after his return, Sadpara said the “Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister came to receive [him] at the airport,” but also noted that his work, was eclipsed by the Bin Laden episode.

There has yet to be any official recognition of Sadpara’s achievement by the federal government. He said he’s no better off today than he was before climbing Mount Everest.

He added, though, that he would set up a mountaineering school in Skardu to train the youth in the field of mountaineering.





Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2011.