Gurkha behind Everest queue photo to smash 14-peak record
A former British special forces soldier will embark today on the last leg of an attempt to break the record for climbing the world’s highest peaks.
The shortest time taken, so far, to climb all 14 of the Himalayan peaks over 8000 metres is seven years, 11 months and 14 days. Nirmal ‘‘Nims’’ Purja, 36, a former Gurkha and Special Boat Service member, is aiming for just seven months. His 14th and last peak is Mt Shishapangma.
‘‘Today we conducted a ceremony at the #shishapangma advanced base camp praying the mountain god for the safe passage,’’ Purja posted on Twitter yesterday.
A spokesman for Project Possible said that Purja had been ‘‘a bit delayed’’ but hoped to reach the 8027-metre summit on Monday or Tuesday.
One obstacle faced by Purja, who spent 16 years in the British Army, is that Shishapangma has been closed by the Chinese authorities. However, on October 15 he was given permission. ‘‘My heart and soul is full of joy,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Now you have given me the opportunity, I will deliver my promise.’’
He reached the summit of his first mountain, Annapurna, on April 23, taking a detour after learning that a climber had become lost on the peak. He took a helicopter back up Annapurna to help to retrieve Chin Wui Kin, a Singaporean anaesthetist, who had become separated from his group. Chin died in hospital.
Purja took the photograph of queues at the top of Everest in March that prompted global debate about commercial climbing operations there. Four of the 13 mountains he has climbed so far were taken in a single push, from base camp to the summit. Five were climbed in 12 days.
Purja, who was born in a village northwest of Kathmandu, was the first Gurkha to serve with the Special Boat Service. He came to mountaineering relatively late, climbing Lobuche East in 2012 without any experience. He climbed Everest in 2016, taking a helicopter to base camp rather than trekking. As a result of the lack of acclimatisation he developed a pulmonary oedema, excess fluid in the lungs. He descended to recover before returning and making it to the top. On the way down he rescued a climber who had been left alone at 8380 metres.
In the birthday honours list last year he was appointed MBE for his work in high-altitude mountaineering.
Reinhold Messner was the first to climb all 14 in 1986. Since then some 40 have followed, many without oxygen, but generally over two or three decades.