Nirmal "Nimsdai" Purja

Nirmal Purja was born in 1983 in Dana, a small village in Myagdi District, Nepal, at about 1,600 metres near Dhaulagiri. He was the fourth of five children (the youngest of four sons, followed by a younger sister) of Nanda Bahadur Purja, a Gurkha soldier in the Indian Army, and Purna Kumari, who came from a farming background and cared for the household and family farm. His parents came from different castes, and their marriage was frowned upon, leaving them cut off financially and socially from their families.

"We came from a really poor family," he told National Geographic. "As a kid, I remember I didn't even have flip-flops." When he was four, the family moved down to the Chitwan District in Nepal's southern plains. He was of Magar descent and was raised Hindu. Following his father and three older brothers into Gurkha service was his principal childhood ambition.

His three older brothers, all Gurkha soldiers, paid for him to attend an English-speaking boarding school in Nepal, where he also became proficient in kick-boxing. While serving in the British armed forces he studied at Loughborough University in England and earned a postgraduate diploma in security management. In December 2023 Loughborough awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his military service and mountaineering achievements.

Military service (2003 to 2018). Purja joined the Brigade of Gurkhas in 2003, serving with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and deployed to Afghanistan. In 2009 he became the first Gurkha accepted into the Royal Navy's Special Boat Service (SBS), where he served as a cold-weather warfare specialist and later became an instructor in the mountain troop. He was wounded in action when a sniper's bullet struck the butt of his rifle. He gained British citizenship during his service, which lasted about 16 years, ten of them in special forces. He resigned in 2018 to climb full time, giving up an army pension he described as a life-changing amount of money.

Early climbs. His first major Himalayan climb was Lobuche East in 2012, during a Christmas trip to Nepal. He summited Dhaulagiri, his first eight-thousander, on 18 May 2014 and Everest on 13 May 2016. On 15 May 2017 he led the Gurkha Everest expedition (G200E), which took Gurkhas to the summit to mark 200 years of Gurkha service, and that season he set speed records on Everest, Lhotse and Makalu.

Project Possible 14/7. Starting with Annapurna on 23 April 2019, he climbed the six Nepali eight-thousanders by 24 May, the five Pakistani eight-thousanders in July (Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, K2 and Broad Peak), then Cho Oyu, Manaslu and finally Shishapangma on 29 October 2019, after China granted a special permit. The 14 peaks took six months and six days, beating the previous record of nearly eight years held by Kim Chang-ho. He climbed Everest, Lhotse and Makalu within about 48 hours. The record stood until Kristin Harila and Tenjen Sherpa completed the 14 in 92 days in 2023.

K2 in winter. On 16 January 2021 he and nine other Nepali climbers made the first winter ascent of K2. He was the only one to summit without supplemental oxygen.

Later records. In May 2022 he climbed Kangchenjunga, Everest and Lhotse without supplemental oxygen in 8 days, 23 hours and 10 minutes. On 4 October 2024 he completed all 14 eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen in a record time, and on 21 October 2024 he became the first person to complete the 14 peaks and the Seven Summits both with and without supplemental oxygen. In 2025 he launched the self-funded Hat-Trick Challenge, aiming to climb the 14 peaks a third time, with donations going to the Nimsdai Foundation. His Nanga Parbat summit on 3 July 2025 was his 50th eight-thousander ascent. In May 2026 he made his ninth Everest ascent and set a record traverse from Everest to Lhotse without supplemental oxygen in 13 hours. Gasherbrum II on 21 July 2026 was his 57th eight-thousander summit, 29 of them without bottled oxygen.

Business. He founded the expedition company Elite Exped, the clothing brand Nimsdai Store and Skydive Nimsdai, and invested in a helicopter charter company in Nepal.

In 2006 he married Suchi Purja, the daughter of a Gurkha soldier, who worked in dentistry. The couple settled in Eastleigh, near Southampton in Hampshire, and had one daughter, Himani. Suchi appeared in the documentary 14 Peaks, which showed the strain his expeditions placed on family life, including her fears for his safety, his mother's serious illness and an older brother's opposition to him leaving the army. He said in 2024 that becoming a father made him take a little less risk. He spent around 11 months of the year in the mountains and relaxed through skydiving and paragliding. His older brother Kamal Bahadur Purja spoke for the family after his death.

His guiding belief was that "with relentless self-belief, anything is possible", which became the motto of his projects and the title of his film. He said Project Possible was meant to raise the name of Nepali climbers, whom he called the pioneers of 8,000-metre climbing whose names were not recognised enough, and to show people from poor backgrounds that they too could dream big. He argued that being first to show a new concept mattered more than records, which can always be broken. He worried about the future of mountain porters and urged government and industry to protect them, and he spoke of humility before nature: "No matter how powerful you are, you cannot fight nature." He believed in helping others, saying that through his foundation he gave a share of his earnings to community work.

Purja changed the pace and style of Himalayan climbing. After Project Possible, attempts on multiple eight-thousanders in a single season became common, and commercial clients began climbing several peaks in rapid succession, often guided by his team. Obituaries described him as the first celebrity mountaineer of the streaming era and credited him with moving Nepali climbers from the margins of Himalayan stories to the centre of the global stage. At his death he held the records for the most eight-thousander ascents (57) and the most without bottled oxygen (29). Research in 2022 verified him as one of only three climbers known to have stood on the true summit of all 14 eight-thousanders. His companies and the Nimsdai Foundation said they would continue his mission, including the Big Mountain Clean Up and the Lobuche Porter House.

Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), 2018, for outstanding achievement in extreme high-altitude mountaineering. Multiple Guinness World Records for speed ascents of eight-thousanders. ISPO Cup Award, Düsseldorf, November 2023, for his mountaineering career and charitable work. Honorary doctorate, Loughborough University, December 2023. In August 2026 a newly described Himalayan flowering plant native to Myagdi District, Impatiens nimspurjae, was named after him in recognition of his climbing and environmental work.

His memoir Beyond Possible was published by Hodder & Stoughton on 12 November 2020. Netflix released the documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible on 29 November 2021, bringing Project Possible to a worldwide audience. His May 2019 photograph of the long queue of climbers near Everest's summit went viral and was published by The New York Times. He appeared on major podcasts and broadcasts, including The Joe Rogan Experience, and broadcast his climbs to a large social media following from the high camps.

Style and ethics. Traditional alpinists criticised his use of bottled oxygen, fixed ropes, established routes and helicopters between peaks. Sir Chris Bonington was quoted in 2019 as saying, "What he has done is quite extraordinary, but it isn't mountaineering." During the 2021 winter K2 climb, some in mountaineering questioned his ethics over the use of another team's ropes and the timing of his summit.

Summit verification. Research published in 2022 found that during Project Possible he had stopped at the fore summit of Dhaulagiri and the ridge point on Manaslu. He reached the true summits of both in autumn 2021, and Guinness World Records reclassified the original record.

Elite Exped. In September 2022 a fire and explosions at the rented Kathmandu building housing Elite Exped's office killed three staff members. In 2024 Nepal's Department of Tourism investigated allegations about an unauthorised helicopter flight to Everest's Camp II and unpermitted entry to high camps, and his claim that fixed ropes had been deliberately cut was disputed by other operators.

Misconduct allegations. In May 2024 The New York Times reported allegations of sexual misconduct by Finnish climber Lotta Hintsa and American physician April Leonardo. Purja unequivocally denied the allegations through his lawyer, called them false and defamatory, and said he would take legal action. Osprey Packs ended its sponsorship, and Grivel and Scarpa suspended marketing featuring him. The claims remained disputed.

Press dispute. In February 2025 the Nepal Press Council ruled that 17 articles by The Himalayan Times about him and his companies breached the journalistic code of conduct and withdrew government advertising from the paper, which called the decision arbitrary.

In July 2026 Purja was in Pakistan's Karakoram on his Hat-Trick Challenge. After summiting Gasherbrum II on 21 July, he added Broad Peak (8,051 m) to the expedition. On 27 July he wrote that a summit would leave only Cho Oyu before he became the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders twice without supplemental oxygen, adding: "Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down."

Heavy snowfall had fallen on the mountain in the preceding week and most teams had left. At around 9 a.m. local time on 30 July 2026, an avalanche struck his ten-member team at about 6,600 metres between Camp 2 and Camp 3 on the west side of the mountain. GPS trackers showed the climbers swept hundreds of metres down the slope. Elite Exped confirmed his death on 1 August. The other victims were Sohail Sakhi, Mallory Geis, Pur Bahadur Gurung (Yukta), Nima Sherpa, Nadhira Al Harthy, Kili Pemba Sherpa, Nawang Thindu Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa and Wang Zhong.

A Nepali-Pakistani team found his body at around 5,700 metres on 2 August. His remains were brought home to the UK, and a private funeral was held at Milton Abbey near Blandford Forum, Dorset, on 26 August 2026, with a guard of honour. He was 43. Tributes came from Prince William, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah, Bear Grylls and climbers worldwide.