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Mount Everest
May is the most popular month for Mount Everest climbs. Photograph: Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images
May is the most popular month for Mount Everest climbs. Photograph: Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images

Saudi Arabian woman in historic Mount Everest climb

This article is more than 10 years old
Raha Moharrak, who was among a party of 64 climbers, becomes first female from the country to scale the mountain

A Saudi Arabian woman has become the first woman from her country to climb Mount Everest.

Raha Moharrak was one of 64 climbers who scaled Mount Everest from Nepal's side of the mountain on Saturday.

Tilak Padney of Nepal's mountaineering department says 35 foreigners accompanied by 29 Nepalese sherpa guides reached the 29,035ft (8,850-metre) peak on Saturday morning after climbing all night from the highest camp on South Col.

May is the most popular month for Everest climbs because of its mild weather.

Moharrak, 25, is originally from Jeddah but lives in Dubai. She is part of a four-person expedition that also includes the first Qatari man and the first Palestinian man attempting to reach the summit. Their Twitter page states that they are "working with Reach Out to Asia to raise money for Nepali education". The "Arabs with Altitude" group includes Mohammed Al Thani, a member of Qatar's royal family; Raed Zidan, a Palestinian property businessman and Masoud Mohammad, an Iranian living in Dubai who owns an ice-cream franchise.

The first people to climb Mount Everest were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Everest: tourism and climate change provide new challenges

  • First female amputee scales Everest

  • Everest climbers abandon ascent after attack by scores of angry Sherpas

  • The first successful ascent of Everest 60 years ago – in pictures

  • Nepalese man, 81, attempts Everest climb days after 80-year-old set record

  • Everest mountaineer says crowding by 'hobby climbers' is path to tragedy

  • Everest climbers wait more than two hours in queue for summit

  • Trekking in the Himalayas: how to do it

  • Touching heaven: Everest - in pictures

  • From the archive, 24 May 1963: Editorial: Everest by the West Ridge

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