sara safari climber

Mountain climber Sara Safari stands at the top of Antarctica's Mount Vinson, holding a flag with the logo for OMID Foundation , a group that supports young women in Iran who have been the victims of abuse and violence. Safari is working to complete the seven summits, getting to the top of the highest peak in every continent, to raise funds for female-focused organizations around the world.

This woman climbs mountains to empower girls around the globe

Sara Safari shares the real reason she climbs, what she's learned from her failures, and how she tackles sexism on the mountain.

Sara Safari had never climbed a mountain when she decided to climb Mount Everest . For her first foray into the mountain climbing world, she attempted to reach the top of California 's Mount Whitney. Nothing went as planned, and she didn’t reach the summit, but she made it through the night all on her own. She was hooked, but she knew she had a lot of work to do.

While she was training for her goal, she connected with Empower Nepali Girls , an organization that works to provide scholarships and educational opportunities to disadvantaged girls and young women in Nepal. She was inspired to match her new mountain adventures with the needs of these girls and began using her climbs to shine a light on the group’s work.

We talked to Safari about her latest efforts to climb the seven summits, her support of Empower Nepali Girls and other female-focused organizations, and the true lessons of mountain climbing.

What inspired you to start mountain climbing?

I wanted to challenge myself to do something out of my comfort zone to prove to myself that, as a woman who has no experience in mountain climbing, I’m capable of anything. I grew up in Iran, and I experienced first-hand gender discrimination, so I wanted to prove to myself and other women that we can do anything men do. But the personal challenge was not enough for me to continue risking my life. When I started climbing for a cause, my motivation tripled. It was not about me anymore. It was about all those young girls and their future.

Have you ever felt excluded or marginalized from the climbing world because of your gender? How did you respond?

Sometimes! Mostly I have met supportive people in my journey, but there are still some men outdoors with patriarchal views—and they make sure to express them as often as they can. For example, on Cho-Oyu I met a guy who wondered why I was climbing instead of shopping in malls. He also wondered how my family allowed me to do this.

Why is he thinking that I need permission to climb a mountain, but he doesn’t? Sara Safari

I usually just smile and stop the conversation, because all my childhood, I’ve been told to be a good girl and not fight or argue. When he asked me that question, I thought “Why is he thinking that I need permission to climb a mountain but he doesn’t?” But I didn’t want to create a scene right at the beginning of the expedition. Thanks to the #metoo movement, in the past couple of years, instead of just smiling, I talk about the elephant in the room.

Sara Safari sits with a group of young girls in Nepal after an earthquake. For her, it is important to balance the risk of her mountain climbing with the importance of her advocacy work.

How did you get connected with Empower Nepali Girls ?

I met the founder, Jeffrey Kottler , at California State University, Fullerton, where I was teaching electrical engineering and computer science. He was teaching psychology. He told me about the foundation and I fell in love with it, so I decided to raise one dollar per foot of any mountain that I climb to provide education for the girls.

Tell us about the organization and its goals.

Our mission is to empower and support neglected, marginalized, and at-risk girls and young women in Nepal, especially those who are at greatest risk to be forced into early marriage, sold into sex slavery, or abandoned as orphans. We provide scholarships, mentoring, career guidance, and subsistence for children who would not [otherwise] have the opportunity to attend school and pursue future careers in medicine, engineering, business, teaching, and other professions.

Have any of the girls from the group learned to climb or taken on adventures of their own?

A couple of years ago, a group of our college girls (I say our girls because I feel like they are all my daughters) took on a female-only hiking trip to some remote regions in Nepal which made me extremely proud. Also, one of our college girls started professional martial arts, and she has been tremendously successful.

What has mountain climbing taught you beyond the skills required to get to the summit?

I have learned it’s not about summit or success and glory. It is about learning how to deal with fears and failures—making friends with them and welcoming them as a part of the summit plan. It is about showing yourself and other people that anything is possible with enough courage and commitment. I love and enjoy traveling to some of these remote places, meeting the locals, and learning about their cultures. I have learned we, as human beings, are all the same—and unique at the same time. We need to celebrate this rather than fight over it. I have met some of the most powerful and resilient women around the world, and they are my inspiration every day.

It is about learning how to deal with fears and failures—making friends with them and welcoming them as a part of the summit plan. Sara Safari

You've long connected advocacy work with your climbing. What's in store next?

I just came back from crossing Greenland to raise funds for Planned Parenthood . I’m also working on the seven summits (climbing the seven highest peaks on all seven continents) for seven organizations who are empowering women. I would be the first Iranian woman to climb all seven. I have already climbed five of them and I have two more to go.

We are also working on a feature film based on my book with a group of amazing people. And my new book is coming out soon.

• Nat Geo Expeditions

What advice do you have for girls looking to pursue their passions?

It’s not about the top of the mountain. It’s about the journey and what opens up for you along the way. I never knew I liked mountain climbing until I tried it. So, try things out of your comfort zone, even if you don’t like them. If your life is too easy, you are not living a very big life. Give yourself time and permission to keep trying and exploring. Look at your failures as a part of the ultimate process.

Climbing external mountains taught me to climb my inner mountains first. I learned how to overcome my fears, how to step outside my comfort zone, how to appreciate everything. Mountains taught me to be patient, humble, and accept my failures and learn from them. I had to climb many internal Everests to be able to stand on the real one. Facing challenges, taking risks, tackling the things that frighten me the most—these are precisely the things that have most empowered me, as well as inspiring our scholarship girls to follow in my footsteps. These girls are attempting something that is absolutely unprecedented, to become the first ones in their villages to attain an education and pursue a professional career. They will become engineers, doctors, mountaineers, or teachers. They will demonstrate to their families and communities that they are indeed among their country’s greatest resources, and they will someday transform their nation.

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Climbing Everest and Empowering Women: Sara Safari Is on a Mission

• Posted by by Jasper Nighthawk
• July 14, 2020

If you are like almost every human who has ever lived, you haven’t climbed to the highest point on the continent of Asia: the summit of Mt. Everest. Neither has Sara Safari.

Unlike you, Safari has climbed the highest points on the other six continents. And it’s likely that sometime in the next few years, she’ll finally reach the top of Everest and thereby become the first Iranian woman ever to have summited the highest peak on each of the seven continents.

It’s not like she hasn’t tried to reach the top of Everest. The first time she tried, she was partway up the mountain – clinging to an ice axe – when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal. Great boulders of ice rocketed past her head. Other climbers were struck, and an avalanche buried part of Everest base camp. In all, twenty-two climbers died, and the adventure turned to a nightmare as she tried to escape the mountain alive. But then she made plans to try again. Before her second attempt, she broke her arm. The third time, she was getting divorced and couldn’t leave the U.S. And now this year the global pandemic has thrown off her plans yet again. “It’s like every year that I’ve been trying to go back, something happens,” she says. “I receive this gift from the universe that tells me, Okay, stop, you’re not going this year. ”

These setbacks don’t bother Safari, in part because her mission has become about so much more than just climbing. She has used her expeditions to raise over $200,000 for charities on each continent she has climbed in. And since the 2015 earthquake, she has become deeply involved with Empower Nepali Girls, a nonprofit organization on whose board she sits and for which she has done much fundraising.

Today Safari is hard at work doing something that might even be harder and more rewarding than climbing Everest: finishing her PhD dissertation at Antioch’s Graduate School of Leadership and Change . She is doing participatory research – “now because of the pandemic, it’s virtual participatory research” – with young women in Nepal. This project will culminate in creating a leadership workshop together with them. If she can pull it off, this will be the culmination of a dream to help young girls across the world feel empowered and ambitious in a way that she wished she had been as a child.

Childhood in Iran Sara Safari grew up in a middle-class family in Tehran. Her father was an engineer, but they still could only afford a two-bedroom house. Safari shared a bedroom with her sister while her other two siblings had the other bedroom. “My parents had to sleep in the living room—they didn’t even have their own bedroom,” says Safari, who says that as she and her siblings became teens and “still had to share bedrooms, it was really hard.”

She excelled at school, where she was encouraged to focus on math and science. “They don’t want the students to be very creative, to think outside the box.” Her school was both rigorous and deeply religious. 

At home, the situation was not much different. Says Safari, “In my family, my extended family, we don’t have any person that is thinking outside of the comfort zone, the traditional zone. Everyone is living very traditionally, normal, straight kind of life. So I never had a role model or an example of a person who continued their education through their PhD, who worked with nonprofit organizations.” Instead, her parents told her, “If you want to be anybody in life, if you want to be useful, you either become a doctor or an engineer. That’s it. Or a lawyer.” She decided to become an engineer.

Moving to the United States When, after high school, she and her family moved to the U.S., she enrolled in El Camino College and found that she excelled. High school in Iran had been more rigorous than the version attended by her American peers, such that despite learning English on the fly, she got straight A’s in basically every class. “Even though I didn’t know any English,” she says, “Everything was so easy that I didn’t even need to know how to speak English to be able to do well in all those classes. Except writing. My writing sucked.”

Adapting to life in the U.S. was not always comfortable. “Everything was a huge shock,” she says. “Going to the grocery store and seeing 100 types of cheese, I was like, ‘How can I choose? I have no idea.’ I hated it at the beginning. I had to spend an hour trying to find one cheese. Can’t you just give me one option?” Even more dramatic was getting used to seeing public displays of affection. “Watching people kissing was the weirdest thing. In the street, people kissing! I was shocked.”

At the same time, she recognized that there were much greater opportunities available to her in the U.S. than there had been in Iran. She threw herself into her schoolwork, transferred to UCLA, and eventually graduated with a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

Working as an Engineer Out of school, she found a job as a systems engineer at Raytheon. It was an important job, and it made her feel appreciated. When she was offered the job, she didn’t negotiate her pay. She explains, “I was so excited that somebody was giving me a job because it’s so hard for women in Iran to get a job. And the fact that somebody’s actually giving me a job, the fact that somebody’s actually respecting me and counting me in, and I’m not invisible anymore, and that somebody is valuing my knowledge—I was like, ‘Whatever.’” She felt that she needed to be grateful just to be hired. “I was so scared. I was like, What if I ask for more money and they say, ‘No,’ and I don’t have a job. ”

The job allowed her to imagine that soon she would accomplish the immigrant dream that she could “get a big paycheck and get to the house and the car that I always wanted.” At the same time, she started to realize that there was other work she might rather be doing. She imagined “escap[ing] down and hav[ing] a smaller place and a smaller car but higher quality of life, being happier.”

Her hand was forced when one day, in the course of a casual conversation, a male coworker doing the same job as her revealed that he was being paid fully 30% more than her. “So my income was two-thirds of his,” says Safari. Her reaction was to ask “How is this even possible? Are you joking?” But he wasn’t joking. He had negotiated a pay scale vastly higher than hers.

It was the last straw for Safari, who decided that she had to leave her job. “It was hard,” she says. “It was really hard, because I had to change a lot of things in my life. But I was happy because I felt like I’m not a slave of the system anymore.”

The Seminar Safari had taken a seminar her final semester at UCLA that stuck with her all the time she worked as an engineer. “In this seminar they talked about interpersonal communication and leadership skills,” explains Safari. “They started talking psychology, relationships, past relationships, why we do things the way we do things, how things are coming from our past. All that.”

The seminar opened her eyes to “this whole huge part of life and human beings and relationships that I never ever explored… I was always in the dark, I had no idea why things were happening the way they were happening. I just thought, ‘I don’t know, I don’t understand it. I’m just going to stick with my work, get good grades, graduate, get a good job, and then get a car, and then get a house, and then get married and have two children, and then I’ll be done. That’s it.’ That was the whole life that I pictured. And I just thought that if anybody does that then it’s fine, this is the end of it.”

The seminar suggested that another life was possible, and now that she had quit her stable career path she knew she had to seek it out. She started teaching engineering at CSU Fullerton and began looking for a program where she could expand her leadership skills. “I just thought that this door opened up and I had to use it.”

Studying Leadership Her path led to Antioch’s Graduate School of Leadership and Change (GSLC). She began thinking about how she could make an impact on the world, using all of her skills and ambition to change things for the better. Her classes were engaging in a way that math and physics never had been, and she learned from both her teachers and her classmates.

Soon she had decided that she needed to start climbing literal mountains. And raising money. And talking about what she was doing. Public speaking. Fundraising.

When she finished her master’s degree and started in on her PhD, she began teaching her own classes in leadership, public speaking, and communication at the Southern California Institute of Technology.

Of her experience at the GSLC, she says that studying at “Antioch was one of the best decisions I have made in my life.” In particular, she has learned so much about how to pass along skills. “Watching our faculty transfer their knowledge to students has been an inspiration for my dissertation and my talks internationally.”

Expeditions and Fundraising Safari now wears many different hats: mountaineer, brand ambassador, inspirational speaker, leadership teacher, and advocate for women’s rights. This has largely followed from her project of climbing to the highest points on all seven continents. These adventures—including a noteworthy time when her fellow mountaineers in Antarctica all had their tents blow away and had to hunker down for the night in hers—are fun to talk about and share pictures of, but they also enable Safari to bring attention and funds to important causes around the world.

She gave a TEDx talk about her experiences in Nepal and the nonprofit Empower Nepali Girls (ENG). And she also has published a book, Above the Mountain’s Shadow , the profits of which are all given to ENG.

Dissertation and Goal for Changing World The big dream today is to finish setting up a leadership workshop for college-age Nepali women. As she does this Safari will also complete her dissertation and finally have her PhD in Leadership and Change . She is using a participatory action research (PAR) methodology, a framework she learned at the GSLC that she explains as “a methodology that includes the participant in the design of the project. So it’s not like me, here, sitting in the United States, designing something for women on the other side of the planet. No. They are in every single step of the design, evaluation, action, planning, learning, redesigning, doing all of that again together—we are in this, and they are participating.”

This is vital, because Safari hopes that the workshop will last for years to come. “I want them to this next year for themselves, and the year after. I don’t want them to be dependent on me. So we are creating this together.” The dream is that for these dozens of young women in Nepal, unlike for Safari, they won’t have to wait until their thirties to discover that their true calling is leadership.

Also: she’s going to climb Everest.

Visit Sara’s website at: climbyoureverest.org

Jasper Nighthawk

Jasper Nighthawk ’19 (Antioch Los Angeles, MFA) is Antioch University's Manager of Communications. He hosts the award-winning Seed Field Podcast and co-edits Common Thread and the Antioch Alumni Magazine . In his free time, Jasper is a writer and publishes an email newsletter called Lightplay . He lives in Los Angeles and on the Mendocino Coast with his partner, child, and cat.

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Keep Climbing: Sara Safari

On April 25, 2015, a powerful earthquake rocked Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and injuring thousands more. The 7.8 magnitude quake and its aftershocks created landslides that devastated rural villages and parts of Kathmandu.

High in the Himalayas, the tremors triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest, claiming the lives of at least 19 climbers and stranding hundreds more on the mountain and at a base camp.

“I was climbing an ice wall at 20,000 feet on Everest when the earthquake hit,” Sara Safari remembers. “That’s one of the scariest moments of my life. There were pieces of ice the size of a car breaking down on us. I still have no idea how none of them hit us.”

She struggled to breathe and see as she scrambled up the wall amid the snow and debris and clipped herself to an anchor. “I saw my whole life flash in front of me. I was scared and sad, but I also felt a little bit of peace knowing that I was dying for a good cause .”

Climbing With a Purpose

Safari was on Everest that day in an effort to raise money for Empower Nepali Girls, an organization that supports, mentors, and educates at-risk Nepalese women and girls. She was hoping to build awareness about the threat they face from human trafficking.

Living in impoverished rural areas, women and girls are often duped by promises of well-paying jobs in Kathmandu or overseas. Each year, more than 10,000 of them are taken across the border to India — one of the world’s busiest trafficking routes — and wind up as sex workers, forced laborers, or slaves in India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Russia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states.

Poverty, the open border between Nepal and India, lack of education, and “the virgin cleansing myth” (a belief that sex with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS) all contribute to the threat these women and girls face.

Inspired to Summit

Safari’s unexpected journey to climb Everest began in 2012. “I worked as an engineer at a large corporation,” the 39-year-old mountaineer and coauthor of Above the Mountain’s Shadow explains in her popular TED Talk, “Climb Your Everest.” “[Instead of walking] up the stairs, I would use the elevator,” she confesses. “I had no camping experience and had never slept in a sleeping bag.”

But a training seminar changed her life’s trajectory. The leader inspired attendees to pursue something beyond their wildest dreams — something that seemed impossible. “My mind blanked out until someone mentioned trekking to Everest base camp,” she recalls. “Before I knew it, I shouted out, ‘I’m gonna climb Everest!’”

She went home and googled “how to climb Everest.” She started smaller, aiming to conquer the highest peak in the lower 48 states: California’s Mount Whitney. None of her friends would join her, so she set out on her own in the middle of winter.

On the trail, Safari discovered that her water bottle had leaked — into her sleeping bag — further challenging her basic survival skills on a frigid night. At the time, she thought she was going to die, but now she sees her night on Whitney’s slopes as an important moment in her life’s journey. It was the first time she stared down her fears : of darkness, of being alone, of death.

“I learned that the best way to overcome my fears is facing them and acknowledging them,” she says. “I also learned I had to train physically and mentally a lot more to prepare for Everest.”

She continued hiking to improve her fitness and attended a silent meditation retreat to build her mental stamina. Despite these efforts, though, her subsequent attempts at summiting ended in failure. Giving up seemed like the best option.

Bigger Than Everest

The same day that Safari swore off mountain climbing, she started teaching computer science and electrical engineering at California State University, Fullerton.

“I also was at a point where I realized that, while I have a job, an apartment, and a car, it wasn’t enough,” she recalls. “ I was only benefiting myself and didn’t want to end up living the rest of my life like that.”

Safari was looking for something bigger. “I didn’t know what, but I knew there was something else out there, and I just had to go find it.”

She found it aptly — while looking for a hiking buddy among her fellow faculty members. “That’s how I met Jeffrey Kottler, the founder of Empower Nepali Girls,” she recalls. “The stories of the Nepalese girls that he shared were so heartbreaking and moving — that’s why I decided to do something for the girls.”

Those stories also hit close to home. “I could see myself, my mom, my aunt, and my neighbors in them. Growing up in Iran, I experienced firsthand the oppressive, restrictive environment that makes gender discrimination possible,” she says. “So having a hand in providing educational opportunities to those girls was exactly what I wanted when I was younger.”

While fighting for gender equality may seem more daunting than summiting Everest, Safari believes the process is the same: Take one step at a time. “If you see a girl, a woman, or anybody trying their best to push themselves out of their comfort zone, to do something new and different, acknowledge them,” she advises. “Say thank you to them. Appreciate their efforts so that they get the confidence to do something more later.”

Stepping outside of our comfort zone creates all sorts of unexpected opportunities. “A whole string of events happen in our favor that can make a difference beyond ourselves,” she explains. “For example, I was the shyest person on the whole planet, but I had to do a TED Talk; I didn’t know how to do fundraising, but I ended up raising tons of money for all these organizations by climbing mountains , which I had never even dreamed of doing or thought I was capable of.”

Safari still wants to conquer Everest, but she won’t be disappointed if she falls short of her goal . “The point isn’t about reaching the top,” she says. “It’s about taking every single little step and learning and growing along the way.”

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Sara April 2015

Each breath was agonizing. I sounded like Darth Vader taking slow, deep wheezing gasps of air. Each step on the ladder required another breath, timed carefully so I could rest in between. But I knew I had to speed things up. Every moment I spent in the Khumbu Icefall was testing fate. This was the most dangerous part of the ascent to the top of Mt. Everest, the place where more people have died. I put all that out of my mind and just concentrated on the next step on the ladder. I looked up and could see I still had another 100 meters to go.

I forced myself to stop and look around and admire the beauty, certainly one of the most spectacular place on Earth with turquoise glaciers and ice towers standing vigil all around me. I tried to raise my goggles for a moment to check the colors, but the sky was so blue, and the reflected sunlight off the snow was so bright, all I could do was squint at the horizon. I thought how many people in the whole world have the opportunity to be here. I had never felt so fortunate to be and feel so alive.

I think the danger was part of the incredible exhilaration. From my view atop ladders roped together and anchored to the side of the glacier I could see the dark crevasses below. I knew that at any moment one could open up beneath me and I'd disappear forever. I shook those thoughts away and reached into my outer parka for a camera. I remembered my mother told me at the airport as she dropped me off for the long flights to Nepal that I shouldn't be distracted by taking pictures, just to concentrate on staying safe. But I had to capture this magic moment. The utter stillness.

After removing my mittens for the photos my fingers felt numb. They had already been stiff after five hours climbing ladders and walking across gaping caverns in the ice. I needed to remember to wear warmer liners under my gloves when we arrived at Camp One in another hour. This was on the South Col, the shoulder of the mountain halfway to the South Ridge at 20,000 feet. I'd been higher before on previous climbs but never one with so many of these ladders across wide crevasses and up steep cliffs.

I tried to gather my energy again for the final climb. More deep, ragged breaths. Then I could hear Damian, one of the expedition guides, yelling up to me. "Get going, Sara! This part is wickedly dangerous. We all need to get off these ladders and onto safer ground."

I nodded but felt paralyzed. I knew this was our last wall for the day, but I was exhausted and terrified.

"Come on, girl!" Damian yelled again. "Get a move on it."

I could feel calmness taking over. The breathing seemed to help, as did remembering all my training. For months, for years, maybe all my life I'd been preparing for this ladder. But I'd already climbed over, across, and up 50 ladders on this expedition. Why did this one seem so different? Was there some premonition? Was something, some memory triggering me?

As I slowly proceeded upward, one clanging step of my crampons at a time, I felt some abrupt movement on the ladder and then I was immediately flooded by an intensely familiar feeling, one that seemed to overwhelm me. It's like I was transported back in time to my childhood in Iran. I had this vivid image of climbing a fig tree near our home and my grandfather was shaking the branches back and forth, just like I felt right now. "Get down here!" he yelled at me. "Don't you know girls don't climb trees?"

It was almost as if it was Damian's voice I heard say those words. But before I could sort that out I became suddenly aware that the ladder I was clutching was now swinging back and forth like the fig tree from the past. But then I studied the wall in front of me and saw clearly that a few of the studs had pulled out but the ladder was still partially attached. It wasn't just the ladder that was moving — it was the whole world.

I tried to scream for help but there was no air. People were yelling at me, telling me what to do, but their voices were muffled. I heard the words, "earthquake," and "avalanche" but they didn't make sense. It was as if I lost the ability to understand English altogether. My brain seemed to shut down.

I could feel ferocious wind and a blizzard of snow threatening to blow me off the ladder that was now swinging wildly out of control. I could hear cracking ice and saw huge chunks of the wall breaking off around me. The ice towers were collapsing like buildings that had imploded. I knew in seconds I was going to be buried and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop it.

"Cover your mouth! Cover your mouth!" I could now hear Damian screaming. I realized he was telling me the avalanche was coming. Forget my mouth, I was thinking. I have to get off this ladder. I scrambled upward as fast as I could, fighting against the blowing wind and snow. As soon as I crested the top I clipped my myself to an anchor with all the carabiners in my possession. I knew this was futile and there was no way I could hold on with the force of the avalanche that was coming. I kicked my crampons deep into the ice, buried my head into the snow, and held onto the ropes with all my strength. I could no longer feel my fingers at all and my breathing was so panicked I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

One of my last thoughts was wondering if they'd ever find my body. And then as the snow covered me I thought of that fig tree back home and all the warnings I'd been given that girls just didn't do this sort of thing.

Sara October 2012

It has been over fifteen years since my family and I first moved to the United States from Iran. It was a time of great turmoil. Yes, I know there always seems to be a certain amount of turbulence in that part of the world: nations feuding with one another, Sunnis versus Shia, clergy versus royal families — it seems never-ending. We managed to escape the chaos to make a better life for ourselves the way so many other immigrants came to the United States for sanctuary and better opportunities.

There had been a series of student protests against the Iranian government's crackdown on more freedoms, leading to the arrest of more than four thousand people, with dozens of others murdered in the streets or tortured in dungeons. During this time, I was a student studying at university in Tehran, and I tried to remain as invisible as possible. Growing up, I'd witnessed women trying to avoid the spotlight, reluctant to ever speak their minds. My mother never had a voice, never expressed any opinions, never did or said anything that would draw attention. I found this both curious and disturbing.

At this point, my family had been waiting thirteen years for visas to leave the country, and I didn't want to take the risk that anything I might do would ruin our chances for escape. I had been arrested a few times, once because the skin on my arm was showing after I rolled up the sleeves of my dress, and the second time because I had been studying with a male student to whom I wasn't married.

I lived in constant fear of getting in trouble. My family was not religious nor particularly observant, but ever since I was a child, I'd been told over and over again at school that a girl would go to hell if she did not always cover herself. Women had to ask men permission for everything — to work, to drive a car, to go for a walk unaccompanied, and especially to ever leave the country, which was my dream. Although I was studying engineering, I knew that I'd never have the opportunity to work as a real professional in Iran; my parents approved of my studies because they thought it would make me more independent, a sentiment not common in Iranian households.

Once we were finally granted permission to leave Iran after so many years of pleading and applications, I started dreaming about America and all the things I would be allowed to do there that I could never do at home. Although my parents and siblings settled in Arizona, I had always wanted to attend the University of California, Los Angeles to study electrical engineering. I had heard the word "UCLA" many times amongst the smartest students at my university in Tehran, so it seemed like no less a "magical kingdom" than Disneyland.

When we landed at the Los Angeles airport, I thought I had arrived in a small village. There was little traffic compared to the chaos of Tehran, no pollution (relatively speaking), no pedestrians in the streets. Where was everyone? I wondered. The few pedestrians I spied were wearing shorts, like they were going to the beach or on holiday. There were a lot of palm trees like I'd seen in the movies and green spaces that didn't appear to be occupied. I also noticed that everyone on the freeway was staying in their lanes, always looking forward but not honking their horns all the time like they do at home. I had been living in a crowded city my whole life, and now I felt so alone with all the relative quiet.

The most amazing thing of all was that once I got out of the car and walked across the street, they had these magic spaces called crosswalks that no cars could enter, at least while I was inside the lines. This one driver just stopped abruptly and waited politely for me to get to the other side before he proceeded. This was incredible! I had to test this because in Iran, nobody ever stops for anyone, and it is like being in a combat zone. I crossed the street back and forth three more times, and the same exact thing happened. It was amazing.

Once I arrived on campus, I thought it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen, with its brick buildings, diversity of students, and the highest academic standards. The students were so many different colors and spoke so many languages. I'd never seen anything like this. I applied and was accepted; however, I discovered I was not prepared for the many adjustments I would have to make to reach my goal.

First of all, the university wouldn't accept any of my three previous years of study, so I had to start my education over again. Secondly, I had learned English in Tehran with a British accent, and people sometimes had a hard time understanding me, as I did them. The customs were so different too. In the Persian culture, it is common for girls to hold hands when they walk around, but I remember reaching for another student's hand as we were strolling to class, and she pulled away, accusing me of being a lesbian. In addition, students spent so much time in bars, and I hadn't yet ever tasted alcohol. Girls wore tank tops, shorts, and revealing clothes, another thing to which I was unaccustomed.

My apartment at UCLA was tiny, basically just a small room. The building was so old that I couldn't close the windows, which was a problem, considering that my neighbors partied a lot. I had to use earplugs just to be able to sleep at night, and I had to study in the library because there was no way to concentrate at home with music blaring at all hours. I had never been around people who drank so much and partied all the time; back in Iran, none of this is allowed, so I was unequipped to deal with this strange behavior.

Throughout my time at UCLA, I worked hard to achieve the highest grades, not only to make my family proud but also so I could build a good life for myself. It was all about wanting things that I could never have back in Iran. I wanted to be able to support myself without depending on a man. I wanted a nice car. I wanted a house of my own. I wanted a husband, eventually — and maybe a few kids. It was all about wanting, without almost any thought about what would truly make me happy. I could earn the best grades, get the best job, maybe even become a professor and teach engineering, but I started to wonder if that was what would really make me feel satisfied.

When I reflected more deeply, I realized that I didn't know what I wanted most. I had never really been permitted to have any grandiose dreams — not atypical for an Iranian woman. I realized that the things I thought I wanted most were related to a small, selfish life benefitting only myself and my family. Sure, I wanted to be able to support myself someday and help my family, but I also wanted to make my mark in the world, to do something useful that would help many others.

I worked so hard that first semester to prove myself, to show my family — and myself — that I could succeed in this very different country. This was a place where women like me were not only allowed to work but were actually encouraged to get an education. And yet I remember that after surviving my first semester and completing my exams, the thought hit me that maybe this was it, that I'd already gone as far as I could go. My mood plummeted, and I wondered if perhaps there was something more to life than this, more than just academic achievement and material success.

I'd always been good at math, science, and technical subjects — unusual for a girl from Iran, where such opportunities are very limited. I wanted to break this mold, to prove that women really could do almost anything men could do. But I wanted more for my life than sitting in a laboratory designing and testing circuit boards to optimize their speed and power usage.

Hiding Under the Table

My father used to terrify me — and everyone else in the household. He was an angry and unhappy man who decided to make everyone else miserable to keep him company. I remember when I was about nine years old, playing outside the house with my friends. One of them abruptly asked me why my last name was different from my father's. I was not only taken aback by the question but also shocked that I'd never considered it before myself. I didn't realize that it was important or even something to notice. I just thought that my last name was chosen by my parents because "Safari" goes so well with "Sara."

"No, stupid," my friend laughed, "you are like me."

"Of course I'm like you," I said, confused by her point. "That's why we're friends!"

"Sara, you lost your dad in the war with Iraq, and then your mom got married again. Just like what happened to me."

I just shook my head and walked away. I couldn't believe what she was saying. I thought she was lying or trying to hurt me, especially when she announced that my sister wasn't my "real" sister and that I was lucky to just be able to live with her. I was just confused. Why did my mother marry someone else? Wasn't I enough for her?

On some level, this started to make sense to me — why my father and his mother were so mean to me all the time. My father's mother would complain about me all the time. I remember hoping that someday my father might love me like a daughter if I acted better or tried harder.

One day when I was six years old, I was playing under the dining room table, crawling over the chairs and climbing between them. I had carefully arranged all my dolls and stuffed animals on a blanket beside the table, covering them with another blanket while they took an afternoon nap. Some of my other toys were scattered around the floor.

I heard the front door creak open and then slam shut so hard I could feel the vibrations. "Nasim," I heard my father yell at my mother, "what the hell is going on around here? The house is a mess. What were you doing all day while I've been working so hard?"

My mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner, so she didn't get the full brunt of his rage. But I did while cowering under the table, fearful he would beat me.

"I'm sorry, Babak," my mother said, wiping her hands on a towel. "I didn't know you were coming home so early."

"This house is not clean! It's a mess. Look at all the shit around here," he said, pointing to my stuff scattered on the floor. I was still hiding in the shadow of the table.

"Babak," my mother tried to explain, "I was just —"

I heard a loud smack and saw my mother fall to the floor after he'd hit her. She started crying, and then he walked outside to smoke a cigarette. My mother could see me under the table, and that made her even more fearful. "Quick, run to the public phone and tell your uncle to come quickly. Otherwise, I ... I don't know —"

I nodded my head in understanding, and my mother placed a small coin in my hand to make the call. She repeated my uncle's phone number several times so I could repeat it back to her. Then I ran as fast as I could out the door, hoping my father would not catch me.

Because I was so little, I had to climb up to reach the phone booth. I could barely grasp the phone, so when I tried to put the coin in the slot, it got stuck, and I couldn't push it in. I was just so scared that something would happen to my mother while I was away that all I could think to do was rush home to try and save her.

My mother was still huddled on the floor a few minutes later, holding her hand to the side of her face. The memories of this day are all muddled together because they merge with so many others just like it, when we all lived in fear of my father's temper.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cognella Press; Illustrated edition (October 30, 2018)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 232 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1516533216
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1516533213
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• #14,783 in Traveler & Explorer Biographies
• #85,630 in Memoirs (Books)

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The Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles

A gathering place for those who leave the beaten path in search of adventure., climb your everest presented by dr. sara safari.

This program was organized by Lance Miller .

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Dr. Sara Safari knows the value of high performing teams. Whether successfully climbing Mt. Everest, or in  business, her goal is to exceed expectations. Her historic  Everest climb is featured in the Netflix documentary, “Aftershock”. Her journey, and many accomplishments have made her an in-demand presenter at corporations and associations.

Dr. Sara Safari is an author, speaker, mountain climber, college professor, Electrical Engineer and advocate for women empowerment. She is the founder and president of a nonprofit called Climb Your Everest that focuses on empowering marginalized Young women through educational programs.

She has received the award for The Global Citizen from United Nations Association in 2015. She is a board member and director of development in Empower Nepali Girls foundation. She also has received the award for Outstanding Practice with Broad Impact in the area of women and leadership from International Leadership Association in 2017. Sara is the first Iranian in history to climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest peaks in each continent.

RECOGNITION

United Nations Global Citizen Award – 2015

Experience Life Magazine National Geographic Magazine Voyage LA Magazine Antioch University News AICPA Women’s Global Leadership Summit Conquering Kilimanjaro, Conquering Fistula 50 Iranian-Americans You Should Know: Sara Safari Journey from Dream to Reality – An Interview with Sara Safari 5 questions with Everest climber Sara Safari For the Girls

I’ve written several books  about how I found my path, and it may inspire you to find yours. All proceeds are donated to Climb Your Everest nonprofit benefiting women.

I work with organizations that want to develop highly productive teams, that deliver profit, performance and engagement.

Dr. Safari brings her global perspective and cultural appreciation to make a profoundly positive difference in the world. She is a nontraditional expert who lead organizations and their teams to achieve extraordinary results.

For more than 10 years, she has studied and practiced human development and transformation and more recently neuroscientific breakthrough that confirms and illuminate these principles.

Climbing the seven summits taught her that mountains and nature are master teachers of life's critical lessons. Sara synthesizes her life's work into practical creative pathways of learning and especially passionate about helping women step up to their highest potential.

Above The Mountain’s Shadow A Journey of Adventure, Disaster, and Redemption Inspired by the Plight of At-Risk Girls

By: Sara Safari

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.

• Oct 13, 2020

Sara Safari - Aiming to be the first Iranian to climb the Seven Summits (only Mt. Everest to go!)

Sara Safari is an author, speaker, mountain climber, college professor, Electrical Engineer and advocate for women empowerment. Sara was born in Iran and moved to the USA in 2002 to continue her education in electrical engineering. While teaching at California State University Fullerton, Sara met the founder of the Empower Nepali Girls foundation. She decided to climb Mt. Everest to raise funds and awareness for the girls who become victims of human trafficking or are forced into early marriage. She is now a board member and director of development of Empower Nepali Girls and she dedicated her book “Follow My Footsteps” to this organisation. Sara will be the first Iranian in history to climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest peaks in each continent. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 7am UK time - Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss out. The tough girl podcast is sponsorship and ad free thanks to the monthly financial support of patrons. To find out more about supporting your favourite podcast and becoming a patron please check out www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast .

Listen to Sara Now!

Click here if you can't see the link below.

Just another Everest climber!

Born in Iran and moved to the USA at age 20

Living in California

Being very grateful to her parents for their sacrifices

Studying electrical engineering

Wanting to raise money for the Empower Nepali Girls foundation

Starting from zero

Getting outside her comfort zone

Being a shy person

Asking strangers for money

Climbing Everest - April 2015

Meeting the girls from Nepal

Being on an ice wall during the earthquake at 20,000 ft

The turning point in her life

Starting to climb the 7 summits

Going back to climb Everest again…but ended up breaking her arm

Going through a divorce in 2008

Getting the idea to cross Greenland

Getting excited about the next expedition

Using the time to reflect back on her life

The uniqueness of the challenge

Advice for women going through a tough situation

The patience needed in mountain climbing

The team dynamics in Greenland

The National Geographic article about the Greenland crossing

Funding challenges and adventures

Building mental resilience and determination

Being a work in progress

Learning new habits and transforming herself

The power of saying it out-loud to the world

Training to get fit and building muscle and endurance

Living with a heavy pack on

Tips for rest and recovery

Walking in the sun everyday for 20 mins

Why you have to START NOW!

Social Media

Website - http://www.climbyoureverest.org Instagram @sara.safari.everest Facebook @sara.roma.90 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_9cyPCB97LUKinSh2Fgpsg/videos

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Your support helps me continue to grow the podcast and do inspiring things in this space! Already done all 3? You’re a rockstar! Thank you!

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Please become a Patron and donate US$5 a month to help fund the runnings costs. Thank you.

• Tough Girl Podcast

Ep. 69 - Season 1 - Sara Safari

Roqe moment. 73 – Mountaineer and Professor Sara Safari on surviving an avalanche while climbing Mt. Everest… – Instagram

A feature interview with mountain climber Sara Safari, who is on a quest to be the first Iranian in history to climb the Seven Summits. Sara is an author, speaker, climber, college professor, electrical engineer and advocate for women’s empowerment. She joins Jian to discuss her journey from shy Iranian girl to Everest scaler, TEDx speaker, and global spokesperson against human trafficking. She recounts the harrowing tale of being half way up Mt Everest when an earthquake and avalanche hit in 2015 – an event that would forever change her life. Plus the inaugural instalment of “It’s All Persian to Us” with Kyan Nademi.

مصاحبه ویژه با کوهنوردی که در این صدد است تا اولین ایرانی باشد که هفت قله جهان را فتح می‌کند. سارا، نویسنده، سخنگو، کوهنورد، استاد دانشگاه، مهندس الکترونیک و فعال در عرصه حمایت و توانمند سازی بانوان می‌باشد. او در این مصاحبه به ژیان ملحق می‌شود تا از داستان زندگی اش به عنوان دختری سر به زیر تا کوهنورد قله اورست، سخنگو در برنامه TEDx و نماینده جهانی بر علیه قاچاق زنان صحبت کند. او از تجربه وحشتناک خویش یاد آور می‌شود- زمانیکه در حین بالا رفتن از قله اورست زلزله و بهمن عظیمی در ۲۰۱۵ رخ داد- که منجر به تغییر مسیر زندگی اش شد.   به علاوه کیان نادمی برنامه جدیدی به نام «همه اش برایمون ایرونیه» را افتتاح می‌کند.

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Watch CBS News

Climber known for daring rescue missions dies on one of Pakistan's tallest mountains: "A true legend"

Updated on: August 12, 2024 / 2:51 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A Pakistani climber known for taking part in high-altitude rescue missions died during a descent from one of the country's tallest mountains, officials said Monday.

Murad Sadpara, 35, died of a wound sustained when a rock hit him on the 8,047-meter (26,400-foot) high Broad Peak in the Karakoram Range, said Karrar Haidri, the secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club.

Haidri said Sadpara began the expedition with a Portuguese climber to scale the mountain last week, but the pair had to turn back when Sadpara's partner fell ill amid harsh weather. He said the team was returning to base camp when the rock hit Sadpara.

Haidri said a team of rescuers was dispatched to evacuate Sadpara, but he died before medical aid could reach him. His body is being brought down from the mountain, Haidri said.

"His death is a sobering reminder of the extreme risks involved in high-altitude climbing, where the line between life and death is often perilously thin," Haidri told AFP.

Haidri did not provide details about the Portuguese climber, saying only that she was safe.

Sadpara scaled many mountains during his life, including northern Pakistan's K2 , the world's second-highest mountain, and the Pakistan Alpine Club called him "a true legend in the mountaineering community."

A little more than a week before his death, Sadpara and four other teammates successfully retrieved the body of Muhammad Hassan Shigri from the extreme altitude of 8,200 meters on K2 in a mission the Alpine Club described as the first of its kind on the world's second-highest mountain.

"He was instrumental in the recovery of Hassan Shigri's body, showcasing his bravery and dedication," the Pakistan Alpine Club said in a post on social media . "Please keep Murad in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time."

Murad Sadpara, one of our most exceptional climbers and a true legend in the mountaineering community, has unfortunately... Posted by Alpine Club of Pakistan on  Saturday, August 10, 2024

A year earlier, Sadpara was part of a team that retrieved the body of an Afghan climber from the mountain's Camp 3, the first time a body was brought back from K2.

Five foreign climbers have fallen to their deaths in separate incidents on Pakistan mountains this summer climbing season.

The death comes about two weeks after two Austrian mountaineers died while attempting to summit a 8,200-foot peak in Italy's Julian Alps. Officials said their bodies were dangling from their climbing ropes, still partially anchored to the mountainside, when they were found at an altitude of around 2,000 meters.

AFP contributed to this report.

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