Climbing festival ends

Islamabad : A two-week climbing festival organised by Alpine Club of Pakistan, the national mountaineering and sport climbing federation concluded in Islamabad.

The Festival included rock and sport climbing competitions paying tribute to national heroes, climbing training camp, orientation to climbers and their engagement in Clean and Green Pakistan, an initiative of the Prime Minister, introduction of safe climbing SoPs.

The climbers from different parts of the country and departments like HEC & SNGPL participated in these activities. The athletes were engaged in cleaning the trek at Margallah Hills.

The SoPs formulated for the safety of the climbers amid COVID-19 perspective were also observed. In Sport and Rock Climbing Competitions of Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and Hassan Sadpara Memorial Competition Mr.Zaheer Ahmed, Hassan Faiz, Mushahid Hussain, Abu Hurraira, Abdul Bari, Arbab Ayaz Kansi Umar Bilal, and Ms. Saba were awarded trophies and shields in different categories.

Raja Nasir Ali Khan Maqpoon, Minister for Tourism & Sports from Gilgit-Baltistan was the chief guest on the occasion. While addressing the participants, he appreciated the skills demonstrated by climbers and assured co-operation for and support for further promotion of climbing in the country. Abu Zafar Sadiq, President, Alpine Club of Pakistan, while appreciating the improvement in climbers’ performance lauded the support of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Shahid Islam, Deputy Director General was the guest of honour at this occasion who appreciated the regular activities being undertaken by ACP.

Karrar Haidri, Secretary, Rehmatullah Qureshi, Faiz Ali, Zubair Zafar Farooqi, Ayaz Shigri, Akram Awan, Abdul Qadir, Ali Raza, Najeeb Khattak, Aslam Kasi, Rafat Ali were also present on the occasion.