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Living life on the edge and in the fast lane has become second nature for stout-hearted Semreen Ahmed who recently conquered her second of the Seven Summits - the highest mountains on each of the continents.
The 30-year-old Bahraini, who works as a marketing manager for Bentley and Lamborghini in Bahrain, summited Elbrus, a dormant volcano and the tallest peak in Europe and Russia, with a height of 5,642 metres above sea level.
The self-professed ‘marketer by profession, mountaineer by passion’ has always had a deep affinity for majestic mountains, perhaps, because of her ancestral roots in the mountainous region of Kashmir in India.
“It was during my trip to Northern Pakistan in 2021, home to some of the world’s highest peaks, that I truly began to pursue mountain climbing seriously,” she told GulfWeekly.
“The awe-inspiring landscapes and the influence of experienced climbers I met during that journey inspired me to explore the realms of mountaineering.”
Since then, even before she conquered Elbrus, she had explored Tsingy in Madagascar.
Last year, on National Climbing Day on August 1, she conquered her first of the Seven Summits - Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro - the highest point in Africa at 5,895m above sea level.
For her Elbrus summit, Semreen was part of a six-member team, including a guide, with climbers from Russia, Belarus and Paraguay.
The crew went through a few days of acclimatisation rotations as well as extensive training beforehand to prepare for the climb.
“My training primarily focused on enhancing my strength, endurance and balance,” Semreen added.
“This involved strength training to shoulder the load while ascending to the higher camps, endurance exercises to sustain long hours of climbing without exhaustion, and balance training to navigate through various types of terrains with confidence.”
This training ended up paying off although Semreen found the final 20 minutes to be the hardest of the climb.
“During this time, I experienced altitude sickness, which brought on pounding headaches, nausea, and a sense of breathlessness all the way till the summit and back to the saddle,” she added.
And yet, she pushed through and finally raised Bahrain’s flag at the summit, reflecting later that she was “deeply humbled and honoured to have achieved this extraordinary milestone” while “representing Bahrain in the mountaineering community around the world”.
Not one to rest on her laurels, she already has a bucket list of mountains she would like to conquer but is coy about revealing the list, just yet.
She also hopes to see more amateur climbers build up the confidence and skill by exploring such treks around the world.
“My advice to aspiring amateur climbers is to start where you are, with the resources and abilities you have at hand,” she added.
“Don’t hesitate to seek guidance and support from experienced climbers or professionals in the field.”
For more details, follow @sam__rain on Instagram.
