{"id":13289,"date":"2017-02-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=13289"},"modified":"2017-08-17T13:18:48","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T20:18:48","slug":"female-saudi-arabian-alpinist-breaking-molds-smashing-stigmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/climb\/female-saudi-arabian-alpinist-breaking-molds-smashing-stigmas","title":{"rendered":"A Female Saudi Arabian Alpinist on Breaking Molds and Smashing Stigmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raha Moharrak is a force of nature. When she\u2019s not climbing, she\u2019s encouraging other Saudi women to follow their dreams and paving the way by following her own.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many nations\u00a0plant their flags on top of Mount Everest every season, but few have climbed through greater odds than Raha Moharrak. The first Saudi Arabian woman to summit Everest, 30-year-old Moharrak, comes from a desert country that tops\u00a0out at roughly 9,000 feet in elevation, where carabiners aren’t sold, women aren\u2019t allowed to drive, and 25 is considered the upper limit of unmarried life.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Raha descends after a successful summit of Mount Everest | Photo:\u00a0AFP<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen I was 25, my mother was in a corner wailing that I was not married, and when I told my father I wanted to climb a mountain, he said no, flat out,\u201d said Moharrak. She said sending him an email to argue her point, opposing him for the first time in her life, was the biggest obstacle of her climbing career, harder than getting hypothermia on Kilimanjaro, her first climb. Harder than the nine comically miserable days she spent trapped in a tent with a Russian man and an American man in a storm on Denali. Harder than the summit ridge of Everest.<\/p>\n

Even with her parents finally on her side, Moharrak faced other hurdles. Acquaintances told her a woman couldn\u2019t possibly climb mountains and looked down upon her parents for supporting her. She wasn\u2019t allowed to train in public. In Antarctica, one of the members of her all-male team stood up at the first meeting and asked the guide, \u201cWhat the hell is Barbie doing here?\u201d Moharrak snapped, \u201cDon\u2019t be fooled by the Disney princess hair.\u201d (In the end, she was the one who ended up helping him on the descent.)<\/p>\n

Moharrak\u2019s father gave his blessing for only one mountain at a time but initially said, \u201cDon\u2019t ever ask me for Everest.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, she was training harder and harder, and she couldn\u2019t get the summit out of her head. Her birthday rolled around. Her father called: \u201cHappy birthday! What do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverest,\u201d she said. She planted the Saudi flag on top in February 2013 and brought her ice axe back as a gift to her parents.<\/p>\n

Still, her mother jokes, \u201cI wish you could look at a man the way you look at that mountain,\u201d and her father forbids her from climbing riskier peaks like K2 or Annapurna, but in the span of three years, Moharrak was able to climb six of the seven summits. Her second attempt on Denali, her final peak, is slated for this June, if she can secure sponsorship.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Raha on her final push to the summit of the Big E\u00a0| Photo:\u00a0AFP<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, she is traveling once again against tall\u00a0odds: She boarded a plane to the United States the day after President Trump\u2019s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. And yet, she arrived in Denver, the face of confidence with a 1000-watt smile, to talk to a captivated crowd about her accomplishments and goals at the Posner Center for International Development<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We caught up with her before her presentation to talk about race, gender equality, and the unity to be found in a love of climbing.<\/p>\n

Kilimanjaro was your first mountain. What about it appealed to you?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was at a transition point in my life. At age 25, socially, you\u2019re expected to start settling down and giving yourself an opportunity to be in society and meet more people so you can get suitors.<\/p>\n

I wanted to travel, to do something totally random and out of the mold. Someone mentioned Kilimanjaro, so I signed up with just a month and a half to train. It was a disaster. I didn\u2019t know how to layer or pace myself. It was a hit-the-ground-running type of thing, and I really paid for it badly, but I still felt this sense of awe.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t let that go.<\/p>\n

In Saudi Arabia, women are often discouraged from participating in sports. What\u2019s that like? Is it changing? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sensitive subject. Sports are looked down upon. Most of the time it’s seen as a pastime boys do, all football and trophies. Fitness is just going to the gym and having a trainer, not a way of life. It\u2019s not about being part of a team.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to teach girls how it feels how to be a winner. When you develop that kind of self-confidence in a little girl, she\u2019s going to grow up to be a strong, capable, proud woman. And when you\u2019re an athlete, you take care of your body and you\u2019re more careful about who you let near you.<\/p>\n

Things have started to change. There are more and more female trainers in Saudi Arabia, for one thing. It\u2019s incredible. We\u2019re slowly moving.<\/p>\n

Was there push-back from other people you knew? What keeps\u00a0you going?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whenever anyone does anything innovative, it causes noise, and you\u2019ll get both positive and negative feedback. Here I was, a woman who did something many men never dream of, and I was very bold and blunt about it. That\u2019s frowned upon in my culture as well as pretty universally. Many prominent newspapers didn\u2019t even mention that I had summited Everest. When there were negative comments, I chose to take them as a compliment to me\u2013the criticism meant they acknowledged me. They can criticize all they like, but they cannot take what I did away from me. I would rather live a life full of stories and scars than one with no scars and no stories to tell.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Raha descends after a successful summit of Mount Everest<\/p><\/div>\n

What about climbing resonates with you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mountaineering stuck with me because it covered so many things I loved. Visiting new countries, meeting people, being outdoors. It’s an endurance sport, it pushes my limits, and it has this sense of meditation: When you walk for 10 hours a day, you really have to be at peace with yourself. That and I really love the feel of steel on ice.<\/p>\n

In this period of tension between the United States and some Middle Eastern\u00a0countries, do you see mountaineering as a unifying force? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I left for Colorado the day after the ban. People were saying, \u201cWhy are you going to the States? It\u2019s a bad time.\u201d But I wasn\u2019t going to let a small group of people change what I believe to be the beauty of the States.<\/p>\n

I could see there was tension in the airport, but I think this was serendipitous timing. What better way to correct negativity and wrong than by doing good? What better way to prove that we can coexist as Americans and Saudis, Muslims and Christians than by proving that we are united? Me being here, a Saudi woman coming to Colorado to talk about climbing mountains, is a perfect example of tolerance and unity. The timing is\u00a0poetic.<\/p>\n

The highest point in Saudi Arabia is around 3,000 meters. How do you train?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a very simple training method. I had a backpack, a scale, my boots, and a garbage bag. I would add sand to the garbage bag, and do six kilos for six hours. Then, I would increase the weight or the treadmill incline or walk for longer. Sometimes I would go\u00a0to an open space an hour and a half away, where I would walk in circles for hours.<\/p>\n

Who are your heroes?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I find heroes in everyday women, in everyday people who find the courage to live extraordinary lives. I find people like Malala<\/a>, Venus and Serena Williams<\/a>, and\u00a0Queen Rania<\/a> inspiring because these are incredible women. But I also admire the super moms and the athletes who are at the end of their lives and still training and smiling and the doctors who go to the ends of the world to help people. I find my heroes both in the spotlight and in the shadows.<\/p>\n