Leila Esfandyari ( fa, لیلا اسفندیاری; February 16, 1971 in Karaj,

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

– July 22, 2011,

Gasherbrum II Gasherbrum II ( ur, ; ); surveyed as K4, is the 13th highest mountain in the world at above sea level. It is the third-highest peak of the Gasherbrum massif, and is located in the Karakoram, on the border between Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan a ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

) was an Iranian mountain climber. Esfandyari was the first Iranian woman to scale the summit of Nanga Parbat in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

, the world’s ninth highest peak with an altitude of 8,125 metres and one of the deadliest peaks. Esfandyari is regarded as a pioneer in the women’s mountain climbing movement, being one of few women in the world to have completed a similar attempt.

Education and career

Esfandyari was brought up and educated in Tehran, Iran, receiving a bachelor's degree in microbiology. She worked as a microbiologist in a Tehran hospital before she left her job to climb K2 in the Himalayas in 2010.

Death

On July 22, 2011, she successfully completed the ascent to

, one of the highest peaks on the

Karakoram The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under the ...

range of the Himalayas.K2 Blog: http://k2bottleneck.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/leila-esfandyari-dies-after-making-summit-of-gasherbrum-2/ Minutes after, on the way down, her foot slipped on the ice and she fell 300 meters down the mountain. She had said once before that: "If I fall, let me remain where I am." In accordance to her wishes, her body now rests in the icy heights of the Himalayan Mountain range.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Esfandyari, Leila Sportspeople from Tehran Iranian mountain climbers Iranian sportswomen 2011 deaths 1970 births Sport deaths in Pakistan Mountaineering deaths 20th-century Iranian women 21st-century Iranian women