India's 'Everest Twins' Tashi & Nungshi Malik conquer Swiss Alps in All-women peak mission

New Delhi, Oct 5: In a hugely proud moment for India, popular mountaineering sisters known as ‘Everest Twins’ have once again made the nation proud after they summited two 4,000m (13,000 ft) peaks in Switzerland's ‘100 percent Women Peak Challenge'.

 

 

Tashi and Nungshi Malik achieved this feat after they hiked in the Swiss Alps in a challenge that was launched on International Women's Day, 2021 as a part of the 100 percent ‘Women Only’ campaign. The summit was aimed to encourage women-only teams to display their courage as they ascend all the forty-eight 13,000 ft peaks in the Swiss Alps.

 

 

The twin mountaineering sisters successfully conquered Mount Breithorn (13,662 ft) & Allalinhorn (13,212 ft), respectively. "We are thankful to Switzerland for inviting us to represent India and Indian women in this peak challenge! We have always dreamt of scaling the peaks here in the Swiss Alps, because we had heard so much about them from our peers, and the Alps did not disappoint,” one of the sisters, Nungshi was quoted as saying. She added, “Both the peaks we scaled were in the car-free town of Switzerland- Zermatt.

 

 

At the top of Allalinhorn, the weather was extremely windy at the top, and the temperatures dropped to minus 5 degrees Celsius. The mountain had lots of crevasses to negotiate in the beginning and exposed rock to climb towards the summit and was more technical than Breithorn.” The two siblings were accompanied by two more Indian women who are not professional mountaineers.

 

The Everest twins experienced the Swiss Alps for the first time. “The terrain here is so different to anything that we have done in the past especially in the Himalayas. But it was an amazing adventure, the visuals from the top of the mountain just took our breath away. The climb to Breithorn was comparatively easier,” the latter continued to add. The sisters encouraged more women to step out of their comfort zone and try mountaineering by visiting Switzerland.

 

 

“The sheer beauty of the Alps and joy of reaching the summit will inspire you to continue and become a seasonal mountaineer,” Tashi said. None among the 400 seasoned mountaineers as well as women have been able to achieve this target of ascending 4,000 meters peak before, as per the reports.

 

 

The twins also attempted their first ever- multi pitch ascent on Riffelhorn, which is at an elevation of 9603 ft. The steep bolted routes, slippery rock and exposed sections pose different challenges in themselves and gives the peak a climbing grade of 4a. Apart from the climb, the twins also indulged in few fun activities like jetboating in Interlaken, gliding across the dragon slider on Mount Pilatus, and visiting the Swiss Museum for Transport in Lucerne.