At 33, Nawal Sfendla realizes one of his wildest dreams and climbs Mount Manaslu in September 2023, which peaks at an altitude of 8,163 meters in the Himalayan range, in Nepal. Originally from Casablanca, she is the first Moroccan mountaineer to achieve such a feat. An ascent which is part of her flagship project the “7 Summits Challenge” which forces her every day to push her limits and accomplish incredible feats in the most remote regions of the planet and in ever more extreme conditions.
Adventurer at heart, Nawal Sfendla is taking on the risky challenge of climbing the seven highest mountains in the world in 2019. This crazy Seven Summits Challenge project and the dream of climbing Everest in 2024, pushed her to put her communications career on hold in 2016, to prepare her physique and begin to train her body and mind to the extreme conditions of mountaineering at very high altitude.
In September 2023, the Moroccan mountaineer succeeded in climbing Mount Manaslu, which peaks at 8 163 meters above sea level in the Himalayas, Nepal. While she had already started this long journey, she learned that an earthquake had just devastated the country, but decided to fight in her own way, far from her loved ones, to make her dream come true. Each climb is for her “a triumph over all the doors that have been closed and the realization of her efforts”. Beyond all limits… The young woman has always been sporty and a fan of running. She regularly participated in international marathons in Morocco, notably that of Casablanca and Marrakech. For her, it was like “a kind of escape”. In June 2019, she followed the proposal of a friend, Nacer Ibn Abdeljalil, the first Moroccan to have reached the summit of Everest, to climb the highest peak in North Africa, Toubkal, which culminates at 4,167 meters above sea level. An experience she won’t soon forget. “I had never pushed myself so much,” she confides. This summit is difficult because in the final phase, you suddenly go up to 1000 meters in altitude, which leads to nausea and drowsiness, especially at night. And then it was my first experience. But the support from my group pushed me to surpass myself.”
