Abdul Karim Mohammad (Little Karim)

Biography

Abdul Karim Mohammad aka "Little Karim" from Hushe, Northern Pakistan is a mountain porter and mountain guide. As a young man, Karim climbed to the town of Skardu in 1976, convinced that he would find work as a porter for groups of climbers arriving in the area. In France, it was Jean-Marc Boivin's hang glider that made him famous, it was on the slopes of Gasherbrum II in 1985. On July 14, Boivin broke the world record for altitude jump by taking off from the summit of the Pakistani giant at 8,035 meters above sea level. The filmmaker Laurent Chevalier draws a film from it: "L'Oiseau Rare". But the jack-of-all-trades of French mountaineering was not the only rare specimen on the Gasherbrum that summer. Before takeoff, it is the Balti carrier Abdul Karim, a tall gentleman barely five feet tall, who makes an impression by hoisting the 16 kg (with a wingspan of five meters!) from the hang glider to the top. Captivated by the incredible strength that emanates from such a small body, Laurent Chevallier shoots a second film from this expedition: "Little Karim". Legend has it that the first load that the native of the village of Hushe carried in the Himalayas was Chris Bonington. In 1978, the famous expedition leader was on his way to K2 with the cream of British mountaineering. Little Karim presents himself to be hired as an altitude carrier but Bonington rejects him: too small. The Pakistani then slips his head between the legs of His Majesty's subject, hoists him on his shoulders and begins to run under the cheers of the assembly. Here he is engaged. But it was the following year that he inherited the nickname that would never leave him. In 1979, France organized what would be its last major national expedition. A year after Everest, the French want K2. The budget is colossal: fourteen mountaineers, tons of equipment transported by 1,400 porters. At the base camp, there are three Abdul Karim. Bernard Mellet, the leader of the expedition, gets lost and ends up giving nicknames. There will be Big, Medium and "Little Karim". Only one will go down in legend, the smallest. Who is by far the strongest. It will spend 28 days above 6,700 meters and hoist loads up to 8,200 meters, without oxygen. At the beginning of the 1980s, the reputation of the little man was already great among the Himalayans who snapped up his services. In 1984, Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander called on him during their famous crossing of the two Gasherbrums and in 1986, he himself reached the summit of Broad Peak while doing the trail for a Korean expedition. After spending his whole life in the mountains, Little Karim ran a small store in Hushe, his hometown. In 2016 he was diagnosed with liver cancer. The Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan announces the assumption of medical costs and jobs for his sons deprived of work during the Covid pandemic following the strong mobilization on social networks; His son having put on sale a jersey signed by Cristiano Ronaldo. The T-shirt was given to Little Karim by the soccer star during a visit to Spain in 2018. He died in Rawalpindi Military Hospital in April 2004 after a long battle with cancer.