Banker, baker, then mountaineer: Kerala woman's journey to peak of Mt Everest

Thiruvananthapuram | Kannur native and a resident of Qatar, Safrina Latheef was a banker and a baker before she turned to mountaineering, a long term desire of hers, and became the first woman from Kerala to scale the over 8,000 feet Everest peak.

Latheef describes herself as a "jack of all trades" as she did a bit of banking and baking before moving on to mountaineering.

Describing the momentous feat as one of the "toughest" things she has done in her life till now, Latheef said that not just physical fitness, but mental strength was also very important to make the climb.

She reached the Everest base camp on April 19, began the climb on April 28, started the final push for the summit on May 12 and reached the top on May 18.

"It is a mental struggle, as we see a lot of unexpected things like avalanches, rock falls and dead bodies of climbers who tried to scale the summit with the same aspirations and dreams as us.

"The dead bodies shake you up. You could be the next body on the line -- that thought crosses your mind. You have to fight all that to reach the summit," she said in a voice note shared with PTI from Nepal.

However, reaching the peak is worth all that gruelling effort because of the view from there, said Safrina Latheef, who is in her late 30s.

"You are on top of the world, the clouds. There is nothing above you that is the feeling you get. It is difficult to describe it. You have to experience it," she said.

But, her decision to take off her goggles to experience the view with her naked eyes proved a bit costly as she got blinded by the snow and had to make the descent with poor vision and was subsequently, briefly hospitalised for it, she said.

Earlier in the day, speaking to a news channel from Nepal, Latheef said that she did not realise the heights she was climbing while scaling the summit, but on the way down "I came to realise the enormity of it".

"I am excited with the experience and happy that I got back alive," she added.

Giving details of the effort she put in to achieve the feat, she said that it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that she and her husband realised the importance of health and physical fitness.

"We became health conscious, joined a gym and began running. It was a long-term desire of mine to do adventure trekking. So, after we became healthier, when we had time, we climbed Mt Kilimanjaro (5,895 meters) in Tanzania with some friends," she said in the voice note.

Since then, her only thought was to climb the highest peak on Earth -- Mount Everest which stands at 8,849 meters.

"For that, we have been training for the last four years. We found a trainer and asked him to train us specifically to climb Everet. We planned to scale Everest last year, but, unfortunately, my husband suffered a training injury.

"This year again he suffered a training injury, but I said I cannot wait any longer and decided to climb it alone. However, my wish was to climb it together with my husband," she stated in the voice note.

As part of the training to climb Everest, the couple climbed Mt Aconcagua in Argentina which is close to 7,000 meters, but it was a rocky mountain.

"In order to understand how it was to climb a snow mountain like Everest, we climbed Mt Elbrus (5,642 meters) in Russia. We also went to the Everest base camp in Nepal to understand the trekking culture," she said.

She said she was lucky to have a life partner like her husband -- Dr Shameel Musthafa -- who is a surgeon at Hamad Medical Corporation in Doha, Qatar, as they both think alike and have the same priorities.

Latheef said that he was supportive of her decision to make the climb without him and she went for it.

On what was important to survive the arduous climb to the summit of Everest, she said it was physical and mental fitness and appropriate clothing.

"Proper clothing is important to combat the weather conditions at that altitude. Physical fitness is also very important in order to make the gruelling climb to the top. But most important is mental fitness as without it, one might give up halfway," she said.

Latheef said that each day of her trek, she questioned why she was spending so much money to torture herself physically like this.

"It is very hard to keep our aim in mind because of the amount of physical torture. So, we have to be mentally strong if we have to reach the top," she said.

Now that she has returned alive from Everest, she has no immediate plans to climb any other high peaks.

"But, I want to complete the seven summits sometime," she said, referring to the highest mountains on each of the seven traditional continents.

Latheef, who has been residing in Qatar for the last 25 years, said, "We need to find our own happiness and we cannot depend on others for that".