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

India’s popular mountaineering sisters known as ‘Everest Twins’ have once again made the country proud after they summited two 4000m (13,000 ft) peaks in Switzerland's ‘100 percent Women Peak Challenge'. Tashi and Nungshi Malik brought laurels to the nation 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 13,000ft peaks in the Swiss Alps, ANI reported. As per the sources, the twin mountaineering sisters successfully conquered Mount Breithorn (13,662 ft) & Allalinhorn (13,212 ft), respectively. 

Everest twins 'thankful' to Switzerland

“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. 

"Inviting Tashi & Nungshi Malik to Switzerland for the Peak Challenge was an opportunity to connect global travellers, especially women mountaineers, and bring them together to discover all that Switzerland offers in its diverse landscape,” Ritu Sharma, Deputy Director, Switzerland Tourism was quoted as saying by ANI. 

“We hope that India's representation in this Peak Challenge will inspire more ladies to try out the outdoor life by participating in high-altitude hikes, mountain biking, and climbing or camping. Because we truly believe that there is no mountain a woman cannot scale, in the world or in her life!” she added. 

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,” another sister Tashi was quoted as saying by ANI. “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 ANI.