Nirmal Purja:
The Record, the K2 Winter, and the Man Who Asked for Nothing but Safe Passage

They called him Nimsdai — Big Brother of the fearless. A Gurkha, a Special Forces soldier, and the only human to have climbed all fourteen eight-thousanders twice without oxygen. This is his legend.

Nirmal Purja — the legend of the North

From Gurkha to the Highest Ground

The legend on his ground — the roof of the world.

Born in Nepal’s Myagdi district, Nirmal Purja joined the Gurkha Brigade and later the British Special Forces, serving in elite mountain units where he learned to move through the world’s worst terrain as naturally as other men walk a street. It was the making of a man built not for altitude but for altitude’s refusal to be conquered.

The Impossible Six Months

In 2019, Purja announced a plan so bold the climbing world laughed at it. He would climb all fourteen eight-thousanders in a single season — a feat no one had done in under eight years. Then he did it in six months and six days. Everest, K2, all of it. Between summits he barely slept, describing each mountain as “just a big climb.” The record felt like a dare that God had accepted.

K2 in Winter — the First Time Ever

In January 2021, Purja stood on K2 in the bitterest cold a team had ever faced, leading the first winter ascent of the Savage Mountain. No one had summited K2 in winter in 34 years of trying. Nimsdai led a team of Nepali climbers to the top in minus-sixty conditions, then brought them all down alive. It remains one of the greatest climbs of the 21st century.

All 14 Twice — Without a Breath of Oxygen

Climbing eight-thousanders without supplemental oxygen is the mountain’s cruelest arithmetic. In 2024, Purja became the first person ever to complete all fourteen eight-thousanders a second time without oxygen. Broad Peak, on 30 July 2026, was to be his third passage of the 8,000-metre world — a closing arc on a career that had made the impossible feel ordinary.

His Own Words

Purja spoke often of fear, courage and the bigger goal. His sentences became the liturgy of modern mountaineering:

“Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down.” — Nirmal Purja

“Death is certain once you are born. I must continue my journey because I have a bigger goal.”

The Day the Legend Fell

On the morning of 30 July 2026, on the west face of Broad Peak, an avalanche swept Purja and nine of his climbing companions down the mountain. He was found four days later at around 5,700 metres and carried home by the ground team. In losing him, the world did not lose a record-holder. It lost the man who proved that nothing was impossible — and taught us, in the silence of the North, how to say it back. Read the full account of that day →

Meet all ten who fell with him — the memorial of the Ten.

Nirmal Purja:The Record, the K2 Winter, and the Man Who Asked for Nothing but Safe Passage