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CHITRAL: A nine-member mountaineering team from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has successfully summited the perilous 6,050-meter (19,850 feet) Thalo Zom peak in the Hindukush mountain range.
The expedition, sponsored by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Culture and Tourism Authority (KPCTA), conquered the treacherous peak on the eighth day of the mission, marking only the fifth successful ascent of the mountain in recorded history.
The specialised expedition was led by veteran climber Roohullah and comprised an experienced nine-member team consisting of Umer Khan, Intikhab Khan, Numan Sami, Izzatullah Shah, Saeed Akhtar, Naeem Khan, Fawad Khan and Raza Ali.
The assistant director of KPCTA, Saad bin Awais, told Dawn that the climbers hailed from various districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that they launched their expedition from the scenic Kumrat Valley in Upper Dir district.
He said that upon reaching the base camp, the team spent a gruelling week acclimatising to the thin air and high-altitude conditions.
On the final push, the team battled extreme vertical terrain, taking exactly eight hours to navigate from the high camp to the summit and hoist the national flag, he added.
Thalo Zom sits isolated on the boundary between Chitral and Upper Dir districts. Despite its modest 6,000-meter stature compared to Pakistan’s 8,000-meter giants, its extreme topography has historically repelled the world’s finest climbers.
“The physical features of the mountain have always kept mountaineers away from it,” Mr Awais said. He added that the KP team had to successfully negotiate a highly perilous approach to the base camp, which was heavily defended by shifting glaciers and deep, hidden crevasses.
“Fortunately, perfectly clear weather throughout the expedition window mitigated some of the risks, making the final climb smoother than anticipated,” he said.
Sahib Irfan, a tour operator from Chitral, underscored the immense difficulty of the peak and said that after an Australian team recorded the historic first ascent of Thalo Zom in 1971, the mountain remained untouched for nearly five decades and it took 48 years for an Italian expedition to finally secure the second successful summit in 2019.
He said that in 2025, a group of local Chitrali climbers under the banner of Shabdaraz Alpine Group successfully scaled it, paving the way for KPCTA-sponsored team’s historic multi-district triumph this July.
Tourism and alpine officials hope this successful expedition will put a spotlight on the untamed mountaineering potential of Upper Dir, Swat and Chitral, opening new routes for domestic adventure tourism.
Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2026
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