Farewell to our snow leopard
Long after they disappear beyond the ridge, their tracks remain etched across the snow, quietly showing others that the impossible path has already been walked. Sometimes, that is the highest summit anyone can ever leave behind
Published: 03:08 PM,Aug 06,2026 | EDITED : 08:08 PM,Aug 06,2026
Snow leopards are among Allah’s most extraordinary creatures. They live where few living beings can survive, among high, silent peaks, thin air and unforgiving ice. They do not seek applause or crowds. Their lives are defined by patience, resilience and an endless climb toward higher ground.
Our compatriot Nadhira bint Ahmed al Harthy lived much the same way as the daughter of Al Mudhairab in the Wilayat Al Qabil, Al Sharqiyah North Governorate. In one of my favourite stories turned into a movie, 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty', the legendary photographer Sean O’Connell waits silently for the elusive snow leopard. Rather than rushing to capture the perfect photograph, he quietly says, “Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.” Nadhira lived by this same unwritten code. She never climbed mountains to be admired. She climbed them to become a better version of herself. Ironically, it was because she never sought the spotlight that she became one of our world’s brightest stars.
Her passing in an avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak in early August 2026 is a heartbreaking loss for humanity, the international mountaineering community and everyone who believes that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things through determination. Yet perhaps the greatest tragedy would be remembering only how she died instead of understanding how she chose to live.
I believe that Nadhira is a role model not because she climbed Everest, but because she first conquered her struggles. In Islam, one of the noblest lifelong struggles is Jihad Al Nafs, the struggle to discipline one’s own soul, overcome fear, laziness, ego and despair. Mountains merely became the visible expression of a far more important invisible journey.
Listening to Nadhira’s interviews, one notices that she rarely spoke about records. She spoke about transformation. She often recalled that she had not been an athlete, nor even someone who particularly loved nature, as she preferred cities. Everything changed after accompanying students to Mount Kilimanjaro. Somewhere between the rocks, silence and altitude, she discovered not simply mountains but herself.
Many of us spend our entire lives searching for purpose. Nadhira found hers above the clouds, so she trained relentlessly, including 50-km runs. Hours of swimming. Endless weekends climbing Oman’s mountains while balancing a demanding career in education. She willingly sacrificed comfort, leisure and social life because she understood something modern society often forgets: Great achievements rarely happen during comfortable seasons. Perhaps the most touching chapter of her story came before she reached Everest. Our mentor, the late Dr Khalid al Siyabi, the first Omani to summit Everest, died while she was still on the expedition. Many would have abandoned the climb. She continued. When she finally stood on the roof of the world in May 2019, she carried his memory with her, dedicating the achievement to the man who first convinced her that impossible dreams sometimes only need someone to say, “Yes, you can.”
There is another traveller whose story quietly echoes through history. Seven centuries earlier, Ibn Battuta left Tangier as a young man intending only to perform Haj. He would spend nearly thirty years crossing Africa, Asia, including Oman and Europe, travelling over 120,000 km, far more than Marco Polo. Yet his greatest discoveries were not geographical. The greatest journeys have never been about reaching destinations. They have always been about becoming different people. Nadhira embodied that same philosophy.
In one interview, she described climbing not as defeating a mountain but as learning humility before nature. High in the Himalayas, she realised how insignificant human beings become before wind, snow and stone. The mountain never negotiates. It never flatters. It simply reveals who you already are.
That may explain why so many leaders, entrepreneurs, soldiers and explorers deliberately seek difficult environments. Pressure is an honest teacher. It strips away excuses. Today’s world encourages us to conquer markets, careers, followers and algorithms. Nadhira reminds us to conquer something much harder. Our fears, our excuses, our comfort, and our own souls. Perhaps that is why her story resonated so deeply beyond mountaineering. She inspired countless people, especially women and young people, not because she reached Everest, K2, or Nanga Parbat, but because she demonstrated that extraordinary lives rarely begin with extraordinary talent. They begin with an ordinary decision repeated every single day: To become slightly stronger than yesterday.
Every avalanche reminds us that nature always has the final word. But it does not have the final meaning. The height of a mountain is measured in metres. The height of a life is measured in inspiration. Nadhira reached both.
Humanity has lost one of its rare snow leopards. Yet snow leopards leave something precious behind. Long after they disappear beyond the ridge, their tracks remain etched across the snow, quietly showing others that the impossible path has already been walked. Sometimes, that is the highest summit anyone can ever leave behind.