The Last Ascent of Rajab Shah – The Multilayered Mountaineer

Hanniah Tariq

His legacy can be seen in the success of Samina Baig, the first Pakistani woman to summit Everest, and many other female students of his now emerging in the field.

Few, other than those connected to the mountains in Pakistan know of Rajab Shah.

He was the first Pakistani to summit all five 8000-m peaks in the country and won the President’s Pride of Performance Award for Mountaineering in 1993. But there is so much more to him that the international mountaineering community does not know.

A high-altitude porter

The mountains were Shah’s bread and butter—he accomplished the remarkable feat of summiting all five eight-thousanders in Pakistan without supplemental oxygen within nine years as a high-altitude porter, in 1998. Carrying loads of up to 20 kgs to the first camps and clearing the way for expeditions after camp 4, he literally earned his way to the top.

He hadn’t had the chance to try for any 6000 or 7000ers before working with a German-Pakistani Expedition in 1989 on Nanga Parbat, the juggernaut standing at 8126 m, which had defeated countless seasoned mountaineers before him. Incidentally, in a testament to his character, after accomplishing this, he only had the chance to return to camp 4 to rest for the night before rushing back out again to rescue a team member who had attempted the summit after him but had failed to return to camp.

Giving back to his village

Rajab was a truly generous man. After accomplishing what the worldwide mountaineering community regarded as extraordinary, this family and community-oriented man chose to return home, to his small village (3100 m) in Shimshal in the very north of Pakistan. To genuinely give back rather than chase fame, he voluntarily trained the next generation of climbers from Shimshal, at first by donating his own hard-earned equipment before he got some help setting up a mountaineering school. This school has produced the next generation of celebrated Pakistani climbers, including Mirza Ali, Samina Baig, Qudrat Ali and Shaheen Baig. Till his passing in 2015, he continued his mission to promote indigenous climbing and skills.

A promoter of sustainable mountain tourism

He was aware that the extremism spreading in Pakistan had caused numerous problems for tourism in his area and the whole country in general. He trained the youth in Shimshal because he had once been very hopeful that more foreign expeditions would arrive to discover the beautiful mountains of his region. But everything took a step back due to conflict.

He felt that mountain tourism was crucial to showing the world that not everyone in Pakistan was an extremist. To that end, he said that the Pakistani youth was highly fortunate to be born in an area where the peaks are like “the roofs of our houses” with extraordinary passes and glaciers that people would always come to see.

He was eager to preserve local mountain tourism, constantly urging young climbers to take an interest, to come forward, and was hopeful that gradually, this time of conflict would also pass.

A champion for women

Shah encouraged the women of Shimshal to step out of their assigned gender roles in a very unusual way—literally by climbing mountains. He said that he started to focus on training the women of Shimshal to be better climbers because he was keen to show the world that Pakistan was not filled with extremists, and in the north, there were places where women climbed shoulder to shoulder with the men.

His legacy can be seen in the success of Samina Baig, the first Pakistani woman to summit Everest, and many other female students of his now emerging in the field. “Samina is my student. After her, there will be a 1000 more Saminas; this is our answer to the narrow mindset,” he often used to say. Shimshali women are some of the strongest and most dedicated mountaineers in Pakistan today.

An environmentalist

He cared deeply not just about community but was also genuinely concerned about nature. He was very vocal about Pakistan’s freshwater reserves in the north, something that he spoke passionately about throughout his life. In fact, his first foray into the climbing world was assisting on an expedition for glacier research in 1986.

In a rare chance to meet with President Laghari in 1993, he voiced his concern for the glaciers and the accumulation of trash damaging them. In his last interview with me in November 2014, he expressed the same apprehension saying that the last time he was on the Baltoro glacier in 2007, it broke his heart to see dead transport animals and mounds of waste. “If it looked like that then, what does it look like now?” he asked with disquiet on his kind face. He keenly added that Pakistanis need to care more about these issues and clean up past mistakes. “Nothing is difficult,” he said. “It will only take a bit of time, money and effort.”

He got the bigger picture

Shah knew that the survival of the traditional way of life in Shimshal was intimately connected with the provision of better education in the area. He was of the opinion that nature had blessed them with everything they needed up there except better education for the next generation. And that is why he felt their way of life was being lost.

If there was education of a better standard available in their village, they wouldn’t have to be parted from their children who were moving south for education and work. His own son went to Gulmit, then Islamabad and after his Masters moved to Kazakhstan.

“This is our heritage, these beautiful mountains that come with freedom,” he would say.

“Why would I leave that and go sit in a room in the city?” He said he didn’t find that thought comfortable. But he was tied to both. He loved his children but also the life he knew. He was wistful of the era in which they made their own clothes in the village with the raw material they got from their own livestock.

Now he felt everything was coming from the south: the clothes they wore, so much of the food, electronics and TV shows. If all of it came from the south, he felt they could not stop their youth from following it down. He said he felt great sadness about all these opposing forces he saw threatening their traditional way of life.

Forgotten

He felt that there was not enough ‘qadar’ (value) for mountaineering in the country. He looked saddened when he spoke about this, saying that he served the country for 20 years on the mountains, but now he was old and at home with no regular income or pension.

“Now there is no one to look after me or ask about me. There is no value in this country. This makes me a little sad” said this quiet, dignified man the last time we spoke, a few months before his passing.

And so, while the world looked for role models in politicians and celebrities, in all the wrong places, one of the most accomplished,humble and generous Pakistanis passed away quietly. He was buried in honour by his community in Shimshal, Gojal on Friday, 1 May 2015, but there was no public outpouring of grief from the international mountaineering community, no coverage by TV channels, or ‘qadar’ at all.

All we can do to honour him now is pray that his last ascent, the one back to his creator, was the most fulfilling of them all. He is climbing with angels now, higher than any of us.

Summary

Hanniah Tariq writes about Rajab Shah, a highly accomplished Pakistani mountaineer who summited all five 8000-m peaks in Pakistan without supplemental oxygen and dedicated his life to promoting indigenous climbing and sustainable mountain tourism. His legacy lives on through the climbers he trained and inspired.

Author: See page 76

 

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