Farouk Saad Hamad al-Zuman, a 30-year-old Saudi, is the first citizen from the Kingdom to climb Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. He reached the summit early yesterday as part of an eight-member summit team, including four Americans, a Frenchman, an Omani and a team leader from Canada. The Omani was forced to drop out because of altitude sickness but the others made the summit as well. Earlier others in the group dropped out at lower altitudes and one Japanese climber died.
Farouk’s accomplishment is the culmination of a life-long dream and has been a source of great pride of Saudi citizens. There he has garnered the nickname of "Sir Edmund Hillary of Saudi Arabia". Farouk is a US-educated public relations executive working for Attariq Communications, who sponsored the climb.
Farouk started climbing in the U.S. as an economics student at Oregon State University. He climbed Washington’s Mount Rainer and Mount Shasta in California.
Thanks to Arab News for the photo.
