Wasfia Nazreen: First Bangladeshi Woman to Conquer K2

On July 22nd, 2022, Wasfia Nazreen became the first woman from Bangladesh to conquer the treacherous path to the top of K2, the World’s second highest mountain.

This achievement was announced via an Instagram post by Elite Exped, the team of mountaineers of which Wasfia was a part.

The post said, “100 per cent success rate! This season has been awesome. Our incredible team for our K2 expedition have all accomplished their goal”.

Five out of the fourteen highest mountains, over 8,000m in height, belong to Pakistan. Climbing any of them is considered the ultimate goal for mountaineers. 

K2, aka the “savage mountain”, lies in the Karakoram range located on the Pakistan- China border. Standing at the height of 8,611m, climbing K2 is a lot more difficult in comparison to even Mount Everest. 

This mountain, which is notorious for having fickle weather, has only been scaled by 425 mountaineers of which only about 20 were women.

Wasfia Nazreen is well-known for being the only Bangladeshi in the world to have climbed the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each of the seven continents.

She is also the founder of the Osel Foundation, which empowers women and girls who are disadvantaged in Bangladesh.

Her mountain climbing journey started in 2011 on the 40th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence. She was the second Bangladeshi woman to climb to the top of Mount Everest on May 26, 2012.

On the 17th of July, the 39-year-old Wasfia Nazreen embarked on the path to summit the tricky mountain with 11 other strong and well-known climbers from all around the world.

This expedition was sponsored by Renata Limited and some of the participants included MingmaTenzi Sherpa, Mingma David Sherpa, and Nirmal Purja.

Wasfia’s other expeditions include climbing to the top of Africa’s Kilimanjaro, South America’s Aconcagua, Antarctica’s Vinson Massif, Europe’s Mount Elbrus, North America’s Denali, and the 4,884-metre Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia’s Papua Province, locally known as Puncak Jaya.

In 2014 she was selected by National Geographic as one of the adventurers of the year.