Nepalese climber Purja closes in on record 14-peak feat
KATHMANDU:The current record for climbing the world’s 14 tallest peaks is almost eight years. Nepali climber, Nirmal Purja, who served in the British special forces, has a target of seven months.
On Monday, Purja arrived at the advance base camp of the 8,201-metre Cho Oyu, ready for the final phase of the last three peaks in his feat of astonishing endurance.
“Nobody believed I could do this when I first said it... I’m so glad to be inspiring generations of all ages through this endeavour. This is what keeps me going,” Purja told AFP by phone.
“This is not about me... it is to show what the human body can do. To establish a paradigm shift in perception of human potential,” Purja said.
Only a teenager when he joined the British Gurkhas, Purja or ‘Nims dai’ climbed both the 8,848-metre Everest and Lhotse at 8,516 metre in a record 10 hours and 15 minutes in 2017.
This inspired the 36-yearold to start ‘Project Possible’, scaling the 14 peaks - all higher than 8,000 metres-- in seven months. But doing so is radically ambitious. In the 1980s, it took Polish climber Jerzy Kukuczka seven years, 11 months and 14 days.
South Korean climber Kim Chang-ho managed it in about a month less - although he did, unlike Kukuczka and Purja, do it without supplementary oxygen.
Purja began his attempt in April with the 8,091-metre Annapurna, checking the illustrious “8,000ers” Dhaulagiri, Kanchenjunga, Everest,
Lhotse and Makalu off his list in only a month to finish his first phase. A month later, he headed to Pakistan for the second part of his mission where he first tackled the notorious Nanga Parbat at 8,125m. Twentythree days later he was standing atop Broad Peak, his fifth and final mountain of the second phase. Battling sleep deprivation to meet his target, Purja said he was almost sprinting up and down five of Pakistan’s highest peaks including K2, the second tallest in the world.
On track to make climbing history, the phenomenal mountaineer has in the process also set several speed climbing records this year.
This included his summits of Everest, Lhotse and Mount Makalu, three of the world’s five highest mountains, in a record 48 hours - and despite the deadly overcrowding this season on the planet’s top peak.