Maya Sherpa

Second attempt. This spring, Maya Sherpa, one of Nepal’s most famous and best female climbers, will tackle Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. “I am happy to go there again,“ the 40-year-old told me as we met in Kathmandu last week. “I have found sponsors who support me. However, my goal is not only to climb Kangchenjunga, I like to climb more 8,000-meter-peaks as the first Nepali woman.” In May 2017, Maya and her Nepalese friends and teammates Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita and Dawa Yangzum Sherpa had had to turn around on the 8,586-meter-high Kangchenjunga, about 300 meters below the highest point. The entire group of summit candidates had run out of ropes. “One of our Climbing Sherpas told us then that they had made the same mistake in spring 2013,” said Maya. “At that time, they went up to the summit. On descent, two Sherpas and three foreign climbers died because there was no rope, they were tired and it was extremely slippery in the upper part of the mountain, especially on the rock.”

More ropes, more manpower

Maya Sherpa, Dawa Yangzum Sherpa and Pasang Lhamu Sherpa (from the right) on Kangchenjunga in 2017

It is not an option to move the last high camp on Kangchenjunga at 7,400 meters further up, says Maya: “I saw no safe place for tents there. We need enough ropes and manpower, that’s the solution.” The three Sherpani, who became the first Nepalese women to climb K2 in Pakistan, the second highest mountain in the world, in 2014, will not be complete up this time. Pasang Lhamu gave birth to a son last November and is missing this time. It’s still open whether Dawa Yangzum will come along. “There are still two weeks to go. Let’s see what happens,” says Maya. “Otherwise, I go alone, with other people.”

Three times on Everest

Maya on Everest

Maya Sherpa has stood her ground as a woman in the men’s world of mountain climbing. She is a professional climber since 2003. With her husband, the expedition operator Arnold Coster, she leads expeditions and works as a mountain guide. The mother of a seven-year-old daughter has scaled Mount Everest from both sides, to date a total of three times. She was also the first female Nepali woman on Cho Oyu (8,188 m) in Tibet, Pumori (7,161 m), Baruntse (7,129 m) and Ama Dablam (6,814 m) in Nepal and on Khan Tengri (7,010 meters) in Kyrgyzstan.

Mental strength counts

In addition, Maya is president of the “Everest Summiteers Association” – and, since last August, also Vice President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA).”I feel very proud. I never thought that I was going to be elected.” She says, she wants to take care of all climbers, not just for women. “Ever since I’ve been climbing, I’ve been giving other women an example of what’s possible. I love to share my experiences and give advice to them. I think that helps.” In the meantime, she is not only accepted by her male Sherpa colleagues, but also by the clients. “Physically, women may be a bit weaker,“ says Maya. „But if you‘re mentally strong, this doesn‘t matter.”

Nasim Eshqi

Donald Trump stands between her and El Capitan. Nasim Eshqi would also like to climb the legendary granite walls in the Yosemite National Park, but the US president has imposed, as is known, an entry ban for Iranians. The 35-year-old from Tehran takes it with humor. “I mean, he is unlucky if I am not there,“ Nasim says, laughing. The female climber does not correspond to the Western cliché of an Iranian woman at all: off-the-shoulder shirt, sunglasses, no headscarf. And she says what she thinks. “The traditional culture in Iran doesn’t accept me or other girls who are the same style like me as real women they want to marry or stay with,” says Nasim. “But it was okay for me from the beginning. I have friends from all over the world who are supporting me mentally.”

Simply continued

The female climber is used to deal with rejection. Even her open-minded parents, a university professor and a teacher, had a hard time to come to terms with the ambitions of her daughter, who first achieved successes as a kickboxer and then, 14 years ago, discovered her passion for mountaineering and climbing. “You go out of the city and come back late, so your parents say: ‘Where have you been?’ They were afraid of dangers happening, or police or bad people. But I just kept doing this. They still don’t like what I do, but I cannot change it.”

Nasim Eshqi: I have an open family but they don’t like what I do

Equality on the rock

Nasim Eshqi in action on the crag Polekhab near Tehran (Route “Iran-Swiss”, 8a+)

Eshqi consistently cuts her own way, and it leads across rock. “The most important thing I feel when I climb anywhere in the world is feeling equal,” Nasim describes her motivation. “In climbing, we all have the same rules. It’s gravity. It doesn’t care from where we are, which gender or how much money we have. It’s just a way, and it’s only us and what we can do.”

Nasim Eshqi: Climbing makes me feeling equal

Nasim climbs routes up to the tenth degree. She spends about half of the year in her home country, where she works as a climbing trainer. But she can not make her living on it. The other months, Nasim is staying abroad, where she keeps her head above water by giving lectures. “Whatever I earn I spend. Sometimes I borrow money to pay my flight tickets.”

With luck and will

Traveling to countries like Georgia, Armenia or Turkey is no problem for her, says Eshqi. But for European states, USA or the largest part of Africa, she needs invitations from there. However, these invitations are not a guarantee that she is later really allowed to enter the countries. With a bit of pride, Nasim points out that she has already climbed in more countries than many others from states without travel restrictions: “If I am lucky and I really want it, I think it will really happen.” Thus the Iranian already climbed on rocks in the Elbsandstone Mountains in eastern Germany, the Italian Dolomites, the Swiss Rätikon or the mountains around Chamonix.

More than 70 new routes

Climbing in Iran (here on Alamkooh mountain )

In these countries, there are no strict clothing regulations like in Iran. In her home country, Nasim is obliged to wear a headscarf under the climbing helmet and to keep her arms covered. “I can live with it. It’s not as hard as for example getting no visas. I am focused on climbing and want to share my passion with many other people.” Eshqi has already opened more than 70 new routes in several countries. Just now the climbing community in her home country is very small. “The most climbers in Iran are more like picnic climbers. They simply want to be outside and use the good weather. There a not more than ten climbers in the whole country who are really pushing their limits,” says  Nasim.

Too impatient for expeditions

High altitude mountaineering is in Iran much more popular than climbing. But the 35-year-old does not see herself in this tradition. “I would love to climb K 2, everyone likes to, but I don’t have enough patience to do enough training for such a long expedition. So I found out, it’s not my way, “ says Eshqi. “I would do all this effort for walking in the Himalayas if there is a wall at the end which I want to climb. This is more in my path than only an expedition up to 8000 or 7000 meters.”

Nasim Eshqi: Not patient enough for expeditions

From enemies to fans

Convincing with performance (Route “Man o to”, 7c+, on Baraghan)

Nasim Eshqi sees signs that the Iranian society is opening up more and more – thanks to Internet use and increased traveling. The hostility, which she was often confronted with in the beginning, has decreased, says the climber, adding that reports of western media about her have played their part in this development: “When people in Iran see that the Europeans have this kind of respect for a girl who does a lot of effort on her way, they start to think: ‘Oh, she’s good. If the Europeans respect her, then we respect her too.’ So at the end all my enemies are my fans now, which I think is a success for me.” Maybe one day, Donald Trump will ask Nasim Eshqi for an autograph – after he has seen her climbing El Capitan.

Nasim Eshqi: Enemies turning into fans