UAE-based Qatari royal reconquers Mt Everest

Published Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Joseph George and Anil Giri

An UAE-based adventurist and a member of Qatari ruling family, scaled the world’s highest peak, the Mount Everest, on Wednesday.

Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Thani, a UAE resident and owner of Masafir.com, successfully scaled the peak of the Everest on May 22, 2013 at 10am local time.

Al Thani reached the summit at 10am, said Gyanendra Shrestha, an official of Nepal’s Tourism Ministry and Civil Aviation who is stationed at the base camp of the Mt Everest.

A brand ambassador of a Doha-based private non-profit organisation, Reach Out to Asia (Rota), Al Thani is raising funds to support education in Nepal.

Just recently (on May 18) Raha Moharrak, a Saudi national and another UAE resident, became the first Saudi woman to achieve the feat.

Adrian Hayes a British adventurer became the first UAE resident to scale the height in 2006. Hayes went on to achieve two Guinness World records for polar expeditions – reaching the Earth’s ‘3 Poles’ in the shortest period of time in history and for the Arctic’s longest unsupported snow-kiting expedition to date.

Al Thani is just 31, and has already scaled the highest peaks in six other continents. Also a member of the Qatari Royal Family, he had kept his mission to the Mount Everest a secret and had not even revealed any details either at Kathmandu or at the base camp.

In earlier comments made last year, Al Thani said that he enjoyed climbing mountains that challenged him and offered him some learning. “I have been climbing for a few years, so there are many mountains I’ve climbed, the most significant being Mount Everest, Mont Blanc (the highest mountain in the Alps), Mount Aconcagua (highest in the Americas) and Kilimanjaro (highest in Africa),” he told a local sports newspaper.

“I usually choose the one that challenges me and also the one that I will learn something new from.”

“He, along with his six Nepali Sherpa friends, has reached the top of Mt Everest at 10 local time of Nepal,” said Shrestha.

The team has now started their descent and are expected to reach back the base camp by Thursday morning.

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