Samar Khan becomes first Pakistani to summit Europe's highest peak
- By Zahid Noor -
- Jun 16, 2024
In a historic achievement, Pakistani climber Samar Khan successfully scaled Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, and descended the peak by snowboarding.
Hailing from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Dir district, Samar becomes the first Pakistani to reach the summit of Mount Elbrus, standing tall at 5,642 meters in Russia.
With the support of the Frontier Corps North, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Khan accomplished this remarkable feat and proudly hoisted the Pakistani flag on the summit.
“I’m pleased to announce that I have successfully climbed Europe’s highest peak, Mt. Elbrus, and snowboarded down, becoming the first Pakistani to pioneer this feat in the world of action sports,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I set out for the summit push around 3am and reached the top by 10am with a green flag, followed by an exhilarating snowboarding descent from Elbrus,” she added while thanking everyone for the support.
It is pertinent to mention here that Samar Khan is also the world’s first woman to cycled the third-largest non-polar glacial system, Biafo Glacier and Godwin Austen Glacier, in the Karakoram mountains of Gilgit Baltistan (GB).
She is also the first Pakistani to have cycled on the roof of Africa, Kilimanjaro, in 2017.
Recognising her achievements, the ESPNW Global Sports Mentoring Program selected Khan to be mentored by top sports executives in the United States (US).
Later, Khan also founded her initiative, ‘Samar Camp’, through which she offers sports camps like mountain biking, backpacking, and snowboarding for girls and women in Pakistan.
The adventurist had also won a silver medal in the Sadia Khan Championship in 2022 and emerged as the winner of the Red Bull Homerun snowboarding category in 2021.
Samar Khan also had a mountain – Shimshal in Gilgit Baltistan (GB) – in her name ‘Ghar e Samar’, which she summited and descended the 5,610-metre peak by snowboarding.