Nims Purja's Life and Death on Broad Peak: The Documentary

From Dana to the Special Boat Service

Nirmal Purja was born on 25 July 1983 in Dana, a village in Myagdi district in western Nepal, below Dhaulagiri. His family moved to the lowlands of Chitwan when he was about four. His father and three of his older brothers had served as Gurkhas, and he joined the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas in 2003. In 2009 he passed selection for the Special Boat Service, the Royal Navy's special forces, and is described as the first Gurkha to join it. He came to climbing late: a 2012 trek to Everest base camp, then his first 8,000-metre summit, Dhaulagiri, in 2014.

Project Possible and the true-summit correction

In 2019 he left the military, gave up his pension and put his family's home on the line to climb all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks in seven months. He used bottled oxygen, fixed ropes, a small Nepali team and helicopter transfers between base camps, and never hid those methods. Starting on Annapurna in April, he finished on Shishapangma on 29 October 2019, 189 days later. The photograph he took on 22 May of climbers queuing below Everest's summit became a widely shared image of crowding on the mountain.

The record did not hold as first announced. In 2022 the researcher Eberhard Jurgalski reported that in 2019 Purja, like many climbers before him, had stopped short of the true summits of Dhaulagiri and Manaslu. He went back and reached both in 2021. Guinness World Records later discounted the 2019 record, while Purja maintained that it still stood.

K2 in winter, fame and the disputes

On 16 January 2021, ten Nepali climbers from three teams, Purja among them, made the first winter ascent of K2, gathering just below the top and walking the final steps together while singing Nepal's national anthem. Netflix released 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible that November.

Fame brought scrutiny. In 2024 he claimed fixed ropes near Everest's summit had been cut; other teams said they were in place, and Nepal's tourism department announced a legal investigation. In May 2024 The New York Times reported allegations of sexual misconduct from two women. He denied them as false and defamatory, and no charges have been reported.

Broad Peak, 30 July 2026

Broad Peak, 8,051 metres high in Pakistan's Karakoram, was a late addition; a summit would have left only Cho Oyu between him and climbing all fourteen twice without bottled oxygen. Heavy snow from around 22 July sent most teams home, but a few stayed, including his company, Elite Exped. On the morning of 30 July an avalanche came down between Camps 2 and 3, at about 6,600 metres. Elite Exped confirmed his death on 1 August. He was 43.

Nine others died with him: Pur Bahadur "Yukta" Gurung, Nima Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa, Nawang Thindu Sherpa, Kili Pemba "Kilu" Sherpa, Wang Zhong, Nadhira Al Harthy, Sohail Sakhi and Mallory Geis.

A note on the facts

His no-oxygen ascents (K2 in 2021, all fourteen by 2024, Everest and Lhotse in 2026) rest on his own accounts. Times and heights for 30 July come from tracker data reported by National Geographic and Explorersweb, and whether a cornice or a serac set off the avalanche is not confirmed. By about 22 August nine of the ten had been brought down; Nawang Thindu Sherpa was located but, at last report, remains on the mountain. His family asked for privacy, and his funeral in the UK was private.