Maria Conceição, the first Portuguese woman to summit Mount Everest, has now conquered K2 in Pakistan, the second highest mountain in the world, she announced today;
The 47-year-old climber said that, after several weeks of bad weather, the group took advantage of a “very short window” to climb to the top, which they reached today at around 10:00 local time (06:00 in Lisbon), she said in a short phone call to the Lusa news agency.
K2, at 8,614 meters, is the second highest mountain in the world after Everest (8,848 meters) and one of the most difficult and risky.
João Garcia was the first Portuguese climber to conquer K2, in 2007;
Conceição arrived in Pakistan in mid-June, but the progress of the expedition has been hampered by the cold and snow;
According to updates on social media, an avalanche hit one of the camps about 10 days ago;
On Saturday she had reached base three, at an altitude of around 7,300 meters.
Maria da Conceição, who was born in Portugal but has lived in the United Arab Emirates since 2003, has several records registered with Guinness World Records (GWR);
In 2005, while working as a flight attendant for an airline, she began helping children from poor backgrounds in Bangladesh;
Physical challenges, such as climbing Everest in 2013, were a way he found at the time to raise funds;
She reached the North Pole in 2011 and in 2018 reached the South Pole, unprecedented feats at the time for a Portuguese woman.
In 2014, the philanthropist and now endurance athlete broke several world records by running consecutive ultramarathons on seven different continents;
