Nurunnahar Nimni

Overview

Nurunnahar Nimni is a Bangladeshi mountaineer from Rangpur who works as a Principal Officer in the General Banking Division of Pubali Bank PLC (Prothom Alo). Her Everest summit on 27 May 2026 made her the third Bangladeshi woman to reach the top of the world — but six months earlier she had already stood on another Himalayan summit that the English-language press never reported: on 3 November 2025 she summited Himlung Himal (7,126 metres) in Nepal carrying a banner reading “Rise for Her” to raise awareness about breast cancer among women, an achievement recorded in the Embassy of Nepal’s official newsletter (Embassy of Nepal, Dhaka).

She reached the summit of Mount Everest at 5:24 a.m. Nepal time on 27 May 2026, raising the Bangladeshi flag at 29,032 feet — the first successful ascent by a Bangladeshi woman in 14 years, and the only Bangladeshi summit of 2026 (Dhaka Tribune; Prothom Alo).

From Chandranath Hill to the Himalayas

Nimni’s fascination with mountains began in 2006 during a field trip to Chandranath Hill in her first year at the University of Dhaka, where she studied geology (Prothom Alo). A North Bengal girl from Rangpur, she spent much of her university life travelling through the hills of Bandarban, and after entering professional life she trekked across Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal as her finances allowed (The Business Standard). In 2019 a visit to Australia Camp in Nepal set her dreaming of higher peaks, and the Everest Base Camp trek in 2020 convinced her to pursue mountaineering professionally (Prothom Alo).

She completed formal training at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, India, in 2022 and joined the Bangla Mountaineering and Trekking Club (BMTC) the same year, climbing under its banner thereafter (Prothom Alo). Progress was not smooth: in 2023 she joined an expedition to the 6,000-metre Pachermo peak and failed — “It felt like the mountain did not accept me. I had been chasing it for so long, but it pushed me away” (The Business Standard). The setback hardened her resolve: “After that, from 2024, every season in Nepal, I went to the mountains and tried to summit peaks each and every time,” until she and her mentor agreed she was ready for Everest (The Business Standard). Before the Everest expedition she had, by one account, successfully climbed one 6,000-metre and one 7,000-metre peak (Bangla Mirror).

Himlung Himal and the “Rise for Her” banner

On 3 November 2025, Nimni summited Himlung Himal (7,126 metres) in Nepal with the banner “Rise for Her”, dedicating the climb to breast cancer awareness among women (Embassy of Nepal, Dhaka). On 21 November, Nepal’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Dhaka, Lalita Silwal, attended the flag-in ceremony for the ascent, organized by the BMTC in Dhaka; Silwal praised Nimni for dedicating the journey to breast cancer awareness and said she hoped the achievement would inspire more women to take up mountaineering (Embassy of Nepal, Dhaka). Pubali Bank later confirmed it had sponsored both the Himlung Himal Expedition and the Everest Expedition (New Age). No English-language news outlet covered the Himlung summit itself — the embassy’s newsletter is the only published record found in this research pass.

The 2026 Everest expedition

Nimni left Dhaka for Nepal on 11 April 2026, trekking from Lukla from 14 April; after walking about 75 kilometres she reached Everest Base Camp (17,600 feet) on 22 April (Bangla Mirror). With the upper routes not yet open, she climbed Lobuche East (20,075 feet) on 1 May as acclimatization, crossed the Khumbu Icefall on 6 May to reach Camp 1 (19,600 feet), pushed on to Camp 2 (21,000 feet), and descended back to base camp on 9 May (Bangla Mirror).

The summit push began on 17 May. She reached Camp 3 (23,950 feet) on 21 May, but a Camp 4 attempt on 22–23 May was abandoned in bad weather and she retreated to Camp 2 to wait (Prothom Alo; Bangla Mirror). With a favourable forecast on 25 May she climbed again, reaching Camp 4 on 26 May and setting out for the summit that evening (Prothom Alo). Camp 4 sits around 8,000 metres in the “Death Zone”; Nimni later said that arriving there still healthy convinced her she could finish: “if I have come this far, I can complete the remaining 844 metres” (The Business Standard).

The climb tested her in other ways. Between Camps III and IV she mistook a motionless climber for someone resting — “Look, he is sleeping so comfortably,” she told her Sherpa; “He is not sleeping. He is dead,” he replied (The Business Standard). Near the summit her crampon broke: “When it broke, I felt I could not summit anymore… I thought I might have to return.” Her Sherpa lashed it together with thread and she kept climbing (The Business Standard).

She reached the summit at 5:24 a.m. Nepal time on 27 May 2026, accompanied by Sherpa guides from Nepal’s 8K Expeditions, and hoisted the Bangladeshi flag (Prothom Alo; Dhaka Tribune). “While going there, the sun was rising in front of me. My right side was the sunrise, and my left side was the whole world,” she said. The moment carried her back to where it began: “When we reached the very top of Chandranath Hill, I felt like I was standing on the peak of Everest. And when I finally stood on the peak of Everest, my feeling was the same — exactly the same joy, the same happiness” (The Business Standard).

Recognition

The Embassy of Nepal in Dhaka congratulated her the same day: “Hearty congratulations to Bangladeshi mountaineer Nurunnahar Nimni on successfully scaling Mount Everest this morning… We wish her continued success in all her future endeavours” (Dhaka Tribune). On 12 June, a flag-return ceremony and press conference at the National Press Club’s Zahur Hossain Chowdhury Hall honoured her; Nepal’s Deputy Chief of Mission Lalita Silwal and women’s rights activist Shireen Parveen Haque attended as honoured guests, Pubali Bank’s Assistant General Manager Farzin Ahmed represented the sponsor, and fellow Everest summiteer M A Muhit conducted the proceedings, as Nimni returned the flag she had carried to the summit and presented a slideshow of the expedition (Bangla Mirror).

On 15 June, Pubali Bank honoured her at its head-office auditorium in a programme titled “Honouring the Summit Conqueror”, where Managing Director and CEO Mohammad Ali presented her with a commemorative crest and a letter of appreciation and a documentary of her climb was screened (New Age). Nimni said the bank had supported her in everything and that colleagues had managed her work during her two-month leave and encouraged her throughout (The Business Standard; New Age).

She has been frank about the barriers behind her: “I am the third-ever Bangladeshi woman to summit Everest. I am not proud of being third. I wish I had been the 300th or 3,000th woman. I want many more women to come after me.” Family resistance and social attitudes toward women taking risks, she said, hold back aspiring climbers — and so does money: the expedition cost around Tk 60 lakh, making sponsorship essential (The Business Standard).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not repeat the earlier version’s claim that she summited Everest alongside “Dawa Nupu Sherpa and Lakpa Thinduk Sherpa” — the sources re-read in this pass name the guides only as Dawa Sherpa and Lakpa Sherpa, or as a Sherpa from 8K Expeditions (Bangla Mirror; Prothom Alo). It does not use one report’s “reached Camp 4 on 29 May” date, which is chronologically impossible given the 27 May summit, and follows Prothom Alo’s camp-by-camp timeline instead. The Tk 60 lakh expedition cost is Nimni’s own interview figure, not an independently audited amount (The Business Standard). English-language sources spell her given name as both “Nurunnahar” and “Nurunnaher” (the Nepal Embassy uses the latter); this profile keeps the more common “Nurunnahar”. The profile also does not claim independent verification of technical climbing details beyond what the cited sources report.