The Nepalese mountaineer, the subject of the documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, has died after being caught in an avalanche on Broad Peak. His death not only marks the passing of one of the most celebrated mountaineers of his generation. It also compels us to reflect on a life lived on the edge, on the collective strength of Nepalese mountaineering, and on a question that the mountains never cease to pose: how far is it worth going?
There are documentaries that you forget shortly after watching them. And then there are others that leave you with a lasting impression of a voice, a gaze or a way of facing the world. In 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, Nirmal Purja didn’t seem to limit himself to simply climbing mountains.
“Nims”, as he was known internationally, spoke of the impossible as if it were a misconception. Faced with an expedition that would have taken up a large part of any mountaineer’s life, he set himself an almost inconceivable schedule: to reach the summits of the world’s fourteen eight-thousanders in seven months.
“NIMS managed to reach the summits of all fourteen of the world’s eight-thousanders in 2019 in six months and six days.
On 30 July 2026, seven years after that feat, the mountain brought his career to a definitive end. Purja died on Broad Peak, in the Pakistani Karakoram, after an avalanche struck his expedition at high altitude. He was 43 years old.
His team subsequently confirmed his death, along with that of the other climbers involved in the accident, whilst weather conditions and the altitude hampered the recovery operations. The avalanche occurred at around 6,600 metres, in an area above Camp 2.
The man who dared to set a deadline for an impossible dream
Before Nirmal Purja, the record for climbing all fourteen eight-thousanders was measured in years. He reduced it to months.
His project was given a deliberately simple name: Project Possible. The aim was to climb, between spring and autumn 2019, the world’s fourteen mountains over 8,000 metres.
Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Kanchenjunga, Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, K2, Broad Peak, Cho Oyu, Manaslu and Shishapangma.
A list that, even when written down on paper, makes your head spin. The Netflix documentary, released in 2021, follows that race against time. But to reduce 14 Peaks to a succession of records would be to fail to grasp its true power. The film isn’t just about someone who climbs fast. It’s about determination, identity, recognition and, above all, teamwork. Netflix presents the film as the story of a seemingly impossible quest: to climb the world’s fourteen highest mountains in less than seven months.
Purja appears on camera as an exuberant, self-assured man, at times reckless and always convinced that the mind gives up long before the body does. But behind that charismatic figure lie other faces: Mingma David Sherpa, Geljen Sherpa, Lakpa Dendi Sherpa, Gesman Tamang and the rest of the Nepalese mountaineers who made the project possible. The record bore Nims’s name, but it had been achieved by a rope team. That was one of his key points.
Putting a face to Nepalese mountaineering
For decades, much of the Western narrative about the Himalayas portrayed Sherpas and high-altitude workers as secondary characters. They prepared the routes, fixed the ropes, carried the loads and bore a significant share of the risk, but they rarely took centre stage in the story. Nirmal Purja wanted to change that hierarchy.
He made no secret of his personal ambition, but neither did he miss an opportunity to highlight the capabilities of Nepalese mountaineers. In 14 Peaks, the mountain is not conquered by a lone hero, but by a group of exceptionally well-prepared professionals who advance, celebrate, suffer and look out for one another.
That endeavour reached another historic milestone in January 2021, when a team made up entirely of Nepalese mountaineers achieved the first winter ascent of K2, the last major 8,000-metre peak that had not yet been climbed during the winter.
The ten mountaineers waited a few metres from the summit and reached the top together, singing the Nepalese national anthem. The image was much more than just a summit photograph: it symbolised the reclaiming of a leading role that had been left out of the frame for far too long. Purja was part of that team. She made the ascent without supplementary oxygen.
The scene that explained who Nims was
Perhaps the most revealing moments in 14 Peaks are not the images of the peaks.
One of these moments occurs far from the snow, when Purja talks about his mother, who was seriously ill whilst the project was underway. He had given up a secure military career and mortgaged his house to fund a dream that many considered absurd. He knew he could lose everything and that his mother might die whilst he was still on the mountain.
The phone call from the summit of Shishapangma – the last of the fourteen peaks – captures much of the emotion of the documentary. Nims tells her they’ve done it. For a moment, the record ceases to be just a number. It is simply a son telling his mother that he has completed the feat for which he had risked so much.
That vulnerability stood in stark contrast to the indestructible persona he projected on the mountain. For Purja was also a man of forceful statements, of celebrations at high altitude, and of a confidence that seemed to leave no room for doubt. He had served in the Gurkhas and subsequently in the Special Boat Service, a unit of the British special forces. His physical and mental preparation stemmed from a world in which fear had to be managed and the mission had to go on. However, the documentary suggests that Nims’s true strength did not lie in the absence of fear. It lay in not allowing that fear to make decisions for him.
He would also stop to help
The pace of Project Possible may have given the impression of a race against the clock. However, the expedition was also characterised by rescue operations and decisions that jeopardised the schedule itself.
After reaching Annapurna, Purja took part in the rescue of the Malaysian mountaineer Wui Kin Chin. On Kanchenjunga, he and his companions delivered oxygen and spent hours trying to help mountaineers who were in extreme distress.
Not all of those expeditions had a happy ending. The documentary reveals a truth that headlines about records tend to oversimplify: in the ‘zone of death’, helping another person can mean giving up on reaching the summit yourself, missing a weather window or jeopardising the survival of the entire rope team.
Nims saw the mountains as a place of extreme physical challenge, but also as a place where no one should ever cease to be human.
Broad Peak, a mountain that was already part of his history
Broad Peak rises to 8,051 metres in the Karakoram range, near K2 and opposite the Gasherbrums. It is the twelfth highest mountain on the planet.
Purja had already climbed it during Project Possible. In July 2019, he summited Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, K2 and Broad Peak itself in just over three weeks, thereby completing the Pakistani leg of his challenge.
By 2026, he had returned to a mountain he knew well, as part of a new phase in his career focused on climbing the major eight-thousanders again under more demanding conditions and without relying on supplementary oxygen.
But knowing a mountain does not mean you can control it. The avalanche that struck the group occurred following a spell of unsettled weather and heavy snowfall. The Pakistani authorities deployed helicopters and rescue teams, although the altitude, the wind and the poor conditions reduced the chances of finding survivors.
The news caused a huge stir because Nims seemed to belong to that small group of people whom it is hard to imagine being detained. He had survived falls, exhaustion, rescues, storms, oedema and endless days spent above 8,000 metres. His presence gave the impression – surely a mistaken one – that he would always find one more reserve of energy.
When ‘nothing is impossible’ ceases to be just a slogan
Following his death, the title of the documentary takes on a different meaning.
Nothing Is Impossible was the idea that drove his entire public life. It enabled thousands of people, many of whom had no connection to mountaineering, to discover the eight-thousanders and to question their own limits. It was a powerful message because it wasn’t just about mountains. It spoke of challenging prejudices, of standing by a vision when no one else believes in it, and of pressing on when the goal seems out of reach.
But the mountains introduce a nuance that no motivational quote should overlook. Not everything is always possible. There are physical, meteorological and human limits. There are irreversible decisions. There are days when preparation, experience and mental strength are not enough. An avalanche makes no distinction between beginners and legends; it knows nothing of the records held by those it encounters in its path.
Purja’s death does not invalidate his message. It gives it greater depth. Perhaps what Nims wanted to demonstrate was not that human beings can overcome any obstacle, but that many of the boundaries we accept are constructed by fear, inequality or the judgement of others.
Nirmal Purja lived just as he climbed: quickly, intensely and without asking permission to dream of something greater.
In the end, the mountain had the final say. But for a few years, Nims managed to make the whole world listen to his.
Add a translation in English
