Kathmandu: “Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down. I take zero mountains for granted. Not one,” Nirmal Purja posted on his X account three days before he went missing on the 8,051-metre peak in the Karakoram Range.
But it was not to be for Purja, the Nepali-British climber, popularly known as Nims or Nimsdai.
Purja, 43, was among 10 climbers swept away by an avalanche that struck Broad Peak, located in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Gilgit-Baltistan, at an altitude of around 7,000 metres Thursday.
Purja’s death was confirmed Saturday in a statement issued by Elite Exped, the expedition company he founded. It further said that no member of the expedition survived the avalanche.
The Broad Peak expedition marked the end of Purja’s illustrious mountaineering career. Broad Peak is the world’s 12th-highest mountain and is considered one of the most challenging peaks to climb.
Purja had successfully climbed all 14 peaks above 8,000 metres around the world in just six months and six days, setting a new record in 2019. He was about to complete his mission of climbing all 14 eight-thousanders twice after completing the Broad Peak.
Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, termed Purja as “one of the best climbers” in the world. “He has climbed eight thousanders for most of the time,” he added.
The list of Purja’s achievements, apart from the fastest ascent of the world’s 14 tallest mountains using supplemental oxygen, includes the fastest summits of the world’s three highest mountains – Everest, K2 and Kanchenjunga – and being among the first mountaineers to summit K2 during winter in January 2021.
However, for the highly skilled mountaineer that he was, Purja didn’t grow up in the shadow of the Himalayas. He was born July 25, 1983, in Myagdi district of Gandaki Province but raised in Chitwan in the country’s flatlands.
According to his own website, although he performed well at school, there was no yearning to climb mountains, instead he wanted to become a Gurkha in the British military like his father and brothers before him.
Beginning in 2003, Purja had a distinguished 16-year military career, of which he spent six years as a Gurkha and 10 years with the UK Special Forces (SBS).
Purja was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2018.
According to the UK’s Gurkha Museum, Purja was the first ever Gurkha to join the UK Special Boat Service, a unit predominantly made up of Royal Marines.
The SBS is regarded as one of the most elite units in the British Military.
“During his time with the SBS, Nims developed an interest in mountaineering, which quickly developed into a passion. In December 2012, whilst on leave from his Special Forces duties, Nims set out to trek to Everest Base Camp. This experience fired his passion and ambition for the mountains almost immediately,” the museum mentions on its website.
Soon after his military stint, Purja embarked on a record-breaking mountaineering spree.
His ‘Project Possible 14/7’ saw him climb all 14 eight-thousanders in six months and six days, shattering the previous record.
Purja chronicled his feat of scaling the world’s 14 ‘death zone’ peaks in record time in the book, ‘Beyond Possible: One Soldier, Fourteen Peaks – My Life in the Death Zone.’
He was also the subject of the November 2021 Netflix documentary ’14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible,’ which followed his team’s attempt to climb all 14 eight-thousanders in what was then a record time of under seven months.
His mountaineering career and public life was not without controversies.
Purja faced allegations of wrongdoing in his companies in 2024 through a series of newspaper articles in a leading Nepal daily. Purja filed a complaint with the Nepal Press Council, which sided with the mountaineer in February 2025 and blacklisted the daily. The daily called the decision arbitrary.
Purja had earlier faced allegations of sexual harassment made by two foreigners, but he denied them as false and defamatory.