First Portuguese woman to climb Everest will try to climb the second highest mountain in the world to raise funds for a nursing home
Maria Conceição, the first Portuguese woman to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, will attempt to climb the K2 peak, in Pakistan, to raise funds for a nursing home in Torres Vedras.
The Portuguese woman based in the United Arab Emirates, who has 10 records registered in the Guinness World Records, plans to start the two-month expedition on Sunday, June 16th.
Before that, she will visit Lisbon on Thursday, where she will be a guest speaker at an event for a sports brand.
K2, at 8,614 meters, is the second highest mountain in the world, after Everest (8,848 meters) and one of the most difficult and risky.
“It’s extremely difficult without being injured, but I’m prepared as well as possible. I’ve been training a lot and doing a lot of physiotherapy,” she told the Lusa agency.
João Garcia was one of the few Portuguese climbers who conquered K2 in 2007.
The expedition in which the Portuguese woman will participate also aims to climb Broad Peak (8,047 meters), located on the way to K2.
Born in Angola, Maria Conceição grew up in Vila Franca de Xira, but has been based in Dubai since 2003, where she was a flight attendant.
In 2005, she began helping children from poor backgrounds in Bangladesh, which led her to undertake several physical challenges to raise funds, such as climbing Everest in 2013.
She broke several world records while completing numerous marathons, ultramarathons and triathlons, reaching the North Pole in 2011 and in 2018 reaching the South Pole, an unprecedented feat at the time for a Portuguese woman.
A knee injury, the covid-19 pandemic and menopausal symptoms postponed plans to climb K2 in 2023.
In recent years, he has dedicated himself to giving lectures and motivational sessions to raise donations for his philanthropic actions, during which he estimates he has helped more than 600 children and young people.
To support the expedition to K2, he launched an appeal to donate funds to Lar Nossa Senhora da Luz, in the parish of A dos Cunhados, municipality of Torres Vedras, where his mother lived for 17 years.
“My mother had a very difficult life, so I feel relieved that she spent the last years of her life being cared for. Whenever I visited her, she seemed to be at home, as happy as possible.” , he explained.
In parallel, it maintains an international campaign (https://www.mariadaconceicao.com/climbingK2/landing-page.php) to sell 8,611 books about its activities, one for each meter of height of K2.
This initiative was a solution found to circumvent the United Arab Emirates’ restrictions on donations of foreign origin to non-profit organizations.
