Mountain and its Savagery: Book Review

WHITE people’s quest to climb the world’s highest peaks is well known. I have written about how mountaineering in the Himalayas developed as an offshoot of colonialism. The very language of ‘conquest’ and ‘firsts’ echoed imperial expansion. Planting a flag atop Everest or K-2 symbolised domination, much like planting one on colonised land. Brown people were cast as the dominated; Nepali sherpas carried loads, fixed ropes and absorbed risk so white climbers could claim glory and secure their place in history.

In recent years, that equation has shifted. In 2021, Nepali climber Nirmal (Nims) Purja led the first team to summit K-2 in winter, long considered the last great ‘first’ in mountaineering. The documentary 14 Peaks turned him into a global hero — not least because his story unsettled a sport long centred on white achievement and Western sponsorship.

Not everyone is comfortable with such reversals. A recent film, The Last First: Winter K-2 tells a different story. Unlike most mountaineering films — now a booming genre fuelled by influencers chasing summits — this is not a triumphant tale. It follows Swedish climber John Snorri Sigurjónsson, who recruits Pakistani climber Ali Sadpara and his son Sajid to attempt a winter ascent of K-2. The ‘last first’ refers to winter K-2 being the final major title left to claim.

The film focuses on Snorri and Sadpara as they establish base camp. Considerable effort is made to portray them as ‘friends’, as equals united by shared risk. This framing matters, because it softens the racial and national hierarchies that have long defined Himalayan climbing. As a Pakistani viewer, I wondered whether such equality is truly possible in a sport where brown men have historically assisted white climbers’ quests for recognition, often without their names recorded. The film does not probe this tension or Sadpara’s own view of it.

The atmosphere shifts when an all-Nepali team led by Purja arrives. Their goal is explicit: the summit should belong to Nepali climbers who have spent decades enabling others’ success yet rarely receiving credit. In one clip, Purja says he will not let a white climber take this historic summit. The film’s tone presents this as aggressive or exclusionary, without acknowledging that exclusion has long operated in the opposite direction — embedded in sponsorships, media narratives and the allocation of prestige.

A third group — a commercial expedition organised by a company owned by Nepali sherpas — also appears. The film highlights the sherpas’ business interests, as if to suggest opportunism or a fall from some imagined purity. Yet commercialisation is hardly unique to them; Western climbers and companies have long profited from Himalayan tourism without similar moral scrutiny.

Purja’s large team is depicted almost as an invading force. The crowded base camp and the Nepalis’ numbers are repeatedly emphasised. The underlying resentment becomes clear. While many Western climbers celebrate New Year’s Eve, Purja’s team quietly climbs in brutal conditions and successfully summits K-2. The others awaken to find that the coveted ‘first’ is gone.

The Last First treats this achievement with suspicion. The tone conveys indignation: how dare brown climbers act with the same ambition and strategic resolve long associated with white mountaineers? How dare they coordinate, move swiftly and claim a milestone without seeking Western validation? The real tragedy unfolds when Snorri and Sadpara attempt another summit push. They perish in a sudden storm, me­­tres apart and short of the top. It is a devastating loss for both families and for Pakistan’s climbing community.

Yet even here the narrative feels sele­ctive. Rather than clearly acknowledging that Snorri, as expedition leader, chose to proceed in dangerous conditions, the film hints that Sadpara was pressured to secure the summit for national pride. This allegation is presented without substantiation. It appears to shift responsibility away from Snorri’s decision-making and onto speculative external forces, preserving the image of the Western climber as purely driven by passion.

In the end, The Last First becomes less a story about mountaineering and more a study in resentment. It captures the discomfort of Western climbers confronted by Nepali sherpas who are demonstrably superior in winter high-altitude climbing. When those long relegated to the margins claim the summit for themselves, the old narrative falters.

K-2 is known as the ‘Savage Mountain’. But the film reveals another kind of savagery — the refusal to relinquish ownership of glory, even when history changes and the summit no longer belongs to those who once assumed it always would.

- Author: Rafia Zakaria, DAWN