Nelly Attar has made history by becoming the first Lebanese person to summit the five tallest mountains on Earth, including Everest and the notoriously deadly K2. She has completed over 40 climbs across five continents. A two-time Guinness World Record holder, extreme sports athlete, and former psychotherapist, Nelly blends athletic grit with a community-driven mission: to get people moving, especially across the Middle East.
From founding Saudi Arabia’s first dance studio to training for high-altitude ascents in desert heat, Nelly’s journey is as much about resilience and purpose as it is about summits. Cosmopolitan Middle East sits down with her to reflect on the climbs that changed her, the lessons learned at the edge of endurance, and her vision for making movement and adventure more accessible to all.
CosmoME: What first drew you to mountaineering?
Nelly: My dad took me on my first multi day hike when I was 17. I was going to university soon, so I was moving countries, and we were living in Kenya at the time. Mount Kenya is the second highest peak in Africa. We didn’t know what it was gonna entail. We actually didn’t summit the mountain. My dad got hypothermia, but there was something about the climb or the hike, and just being in nature for two or three days that I was like, this is just amazing. I want to do this when I’m older. I also want to do sports because I was raised in Saudi, and we didn’t really have access to outdoor sports.
CosmoME: Did you feel a calling towards the mountains?
Nelly: No, I felt a pull. A calling is more gentle. It sits at the back of your mind; a pull may feel like swimming against the current, but you can’t let go of the pull. I think I don’t want to do this anymore. It has very high risk and opportunity costs. But then, I feel this same pull, and then I find myself up in the mountain area.
CosmoME: Could you share some details about the mountains you have climbed?
Nelly: When I was 25, I had the summer off, so I went to Mount Kilimanjaro. I fell in love with hiking and climbing. K2 is the second most dangerous. It’s a lot steeper, so avalanches do happen, but not that severe as Annapurna. There is a 33% chance you won’t come back from that mountain. I went to clean up a lot of the waste and we cleaned up about 400 KGs of waste. Annapurna has a very high risk of avalanche. So no matter where you are on the mountain, you’re constantly hearing avalanches break out around you. It’s because of the angle of the mountain, where it sits in a position where just a bit of snow accumulates, and then it slides off. Apart from the altitude, you also have this added layer of constantly being so scared. We don’t know if we’re going to die up there; it just feels like a Russian roulette.
CosmoME: How do you navigate making high pressure decisions in extreme conditions?
Nelly: We were 500 meters away from the summit of Annapurna after being there for one month, and we turned around. I made the call because I was with the team of eight men and most of the guys were from the production team. We got to a point where there was little rope left, not enough for all of us. I was like, if we all made it up together to this point, it doesn’t make sense for three of us to continue and the five to turn around. We either all turn around together, or we all climb up together. It would be another four or five hours to the summit with little or no rope. So if anyone slips, they will slip to their death. And if you’re in doubt, if there’s this much risk on a mountain, you turn around. Climbing is considered the noble art of retreat. You have to know when to turn around. If you want to stay in this game, you have to know when to turn around. My whole team made it down alive and this is what counts.
CosmoME: Which was harder—training your body for extreme altitudes or training your mind to endure the isolation and risk?
Nelly: When you’re training your body, you train your mind. I don’t see them as individuals. I train even when it’s 40 degrees with a heavy pack and that’s a lot of mental training. That discipline and mind/body go hand in hand. The times that I want to give up and I don’t give up is when I train my mind to grow stronger. I always try remind myself that I have so much within me.
CosmoME: Does climbing bring you closer to a sense of God, nature, or something beyond yourself?
Nelly: I think it always makes me feel stronger to God, because it’s almost like I’m stripped away from civilisation. No comfortable beds or showers. I’m left with connecting with my family every now and then through a satellite device, but then it’s just Allah. There’s so much uncertainty. We don’t know what the day is gonna look like. We don’t know who from the team might get hurt. We don’t know who’s not going to come back. I don’t even know if I will come back. God forbid. What keeps me calm is feeling that God is always with me. God is always protecting us. God always chooses what’s best for us. And if we don’t get the summit, that’s God protecting us. If we get to summit, God made that accessible to us. During the times that I’m really really scared, the only thing that gives me calm or peace is thinking: we’re in the safety of Allah. It’s like a mantra I keep repeating. And honestly, it keeps me so calm.
My dad took me on my first hike and he passed away almost five years ago. Climbing connects me to him. When I’m on a mountain, my grief is amplified. I have days on a mountain where I wake up and I start crying uncontrollably.
CosmoME: How does it feel to carry your country’s name on summits?
Nelly: I was born and raised in Saudi, but I started to feel more and more connected to Lebanon when I started to make history around these climbs. Beyond Lebanon, I feel very proud of my Arab heritage. I’ve always been happy about my identity, but I think even more so now, because I have this responsibility to show what Arab woman can do anything. When I started to see how people responded and starting to see how it inspired Arab woman and Muslim woman, I want to continue. I want to pave the way for other Arab women in sports.
CosmoME: What would you like to say to Arab girls and to our readers?
Nelly: I want people to see that if I can, they can too. I’ve done things that were unconventional, creating a job, a career, and a life that are so different from the standard. I managed to excel in it and inspire others. I never imagined I’d make it onto the cover of a magazine for climbing K2. Most people here don’t even know what K2 is. But you have to believe in your dream so strongly that others start to believe in it too. Then it’s no longer just your dream—it becomes everyone’s success.
If I can do this in a career as niche as mountaineering, a sport dominated by men and barely recognized in our region, then they can too. I hope I inspire girls to take the unconventional road, to follow the path that makes sense to them. They will face challenges, resistance from others, and doubt from themselves. But those obstacles will make them stronger. The ups and downs are what make the journey meaningful. When you persevere, lean into your gifts, and live your purpose, that’s when you make the greatest contribution to the world.
CosmoME: Could you share more about the business side of mountaineering?
Nelly: Initially, it was all self-funded. But as it started to take up more of my time and energy, I thought—why not turn this into a job? I was already creating content, so whenever I worked with brands, I’d try to merge it with my climbs. Instead of doing a standard campaign here, I’d say, ‘Why not make it unique and create the campaign up there?’
Over the years, through sponsorships, I’ve partnered with a range of brands—from apparel companies to climbing operators to even medication brands. After a decade, the variety is wide, but sponsorships are what make this possible. Sometimes, it’s still my own savings. Even now, I pay for some climbs myself, funding them through other work and setting money aside for the mountains.
CosmoME: Mountaineering has long been a male-dominated space. What challenges did you face as a woman in that world?
Nelly: I was often the least technically experienced climber on the team. I didn’t grow up with snow, and I didn’t have a climbing background. There was a lot to catch up on. Gear was another challenge. Being petite, I could never find equipment that fit—everything from summit suits to sleeping bags would swallow me whole.
Thankfully, as more women have joined the sport, more brands have started catering to women’s sizes. Now, I don’t see my size or the fact that I’m an Arab woman as a challenge. It’s my strength. I love it when people are surprised and say ‘Oh, you’re a climber?’ and I get to let my performance speak for itself. Training in the extreme heat back home has given me an edge.
CosmoME: What is recovery like? How does coming back to everyday life feel after climbing?
Nelly: It usually takes me two weeks (sometimes a month) to feel like myself again after a climb. My nervous system, my sleep, my training… everything needs time to reset before my body feels strong again. I ease my way back into everything. I don’t like to stop training entirely, but I’m gentle with myself and very aware I’m still recovering.
Even my concentration takes a hit. That first week, I find it hard to focus at work, so I give myself that two-week buffer to slowly re-engage. Psychologically, there’s often a dip too. After so much adrenaline and constant movement in nature with my team, coming back to the noise and overstimulation of the city can feel jarring. That adjustment period, both physically and mentally, is part of the process.
CosmoME: You’ve made history. What is next for you?
Nelly: I’d love to keep climbing, but there’s so much more to life than just summits. For me, sports have always been about community—that’s why I started in the first place. It feels good to be back, training with friends and moving alongside others.
Over the next six months, my focus is on enabling as many people as possible to get active. My background is in therapy, and when I began, sports weren’t widely accessible to women in Saudi. Creating spaces for women to move together changed my life, and I saw firsthand how it transformed theirs. I want to return to that mission.
I have a few adventurous trips planned across the region, coaching sessions, speaking engagements, and an initiative in the works aimed at making movement more accessible to everyone. That’s my goal for now. Then, maybe in six or seven months, I’ll be ready to climb again.
source/content: cosmopolitanme.com (cosmopolitan middle east). (headline edited)
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