RECORDS · THE RACE

11 MAR 2026

The 14 Peaks Record:
Messner, Nimsdai and the Race for All Fourteen

Fourteen mountains, one lifetime, and a handful of names that rewrote what the human body could do.

Climbing one eight-thousander is a life's ambition. Climbing all fourteen is a legend. Since the last of the fourteen peaks — Shishapangma — was first climbed in 1964, fewer than fifty people have stood on all of them. This is the story of the ones who made it a record race.

Reinhold Messner: The First

In 1986, the Italian Reinhold Messner became the first human to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders, and he did it without supplementary oxygen — the strictest possible way. Messner had already rewritten the rules of alpinism, from the first solo ascent of Everest without oxygen to a style of climbing that prized speed and risk over camps and sherpas.

Nirmal Purja: The Impossible Six Months

For decades, the record for the fastest completion of the fourteen was measured in years. Then, in 2019, the Gurkha and former Special Forces soldier Nirmal "Nimsdai" Purja announced he would climb all fourteen in a single season. The world laughed. In six months and six days, he did it. In 2021 he led the first winter ascent of K2. In 2024 he repeated all fourteen without oxygen — the first double complete of the fourteen, done the hardest way. His full legend →

The New Race

The records have kept moving. Teams now climb the fourteen in overlapping seasons, racing weather windows across two ranges. The “14 peaks” has become a pilgrimage, a competition and — for three climbers on Broad Peak in 2026 who were partway through their own fourteen — a final, unfinished dream.

“Nothing is impossible.” — the creed of the record-breakers