Nims Purja's Project Possible: All 14 Peaks in 6 Months, 6 Days

In 2019 a former Gurkha and UK Special Forces soldier from Myagdi in western Nepal set out to climb all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks inside a single year. Nirmal “Nims” Purja — Nimsdai — did it in six months and six days. The previous record had stood at almost eight years. It remains one of the most extraordinary feats in the history of high-altitude mountaineering, and it is worth understanding exactly what he did, and how the record has moved since.

The 189-day sprint

Purja opened Project Possible on Annapurna I on 23 April 2019 and closed it on Shishapangma in Tibet on 29 October 2019. In between he climbed the eight peaks in Nepal, the five in Pakistan’s Karakoram, and the two in Tibet, moving between mountains and countries at a pace no one had attempted before. In the spring he summited Everest, Lhotse and Makalu — three of the five highest mountains on Earth — inside roughly 48 hours. In the Pakistan season he took on K2, the hardest of them all, in a year when many teams turned back.

Purja was open about how it was done, and that honesty matters. He used supplemental oxygen, fixed ropes and a strong team of Nepali climbers; he used helicopters to move between base camps within the rules each range allowed; and he leaned on the same Sherpa expertise that carries almost every commercial summit. The achievement was the human engine and the logistics, not a claim of climbing alone and unaided. He beat the old mark held by Kim Chang-ho of South Korea, who had climbed all fourteen without supplemental oxygen over 7 years, 10 months and 6 days, finishing in 2013.

How the record fell again

Records exist to be broken, and this one was — comprehensively. In 2023 the Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and Nepali guide Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa climbed all fourteen in just 92 days, finishing on K2 on 27 July 2023. Their partnership cut Purja’s time by more than half, and like his, it depended on a superb Sherpa team, oxygen and finely tuned logistics. It is the mark that stands today. Nepali climbers have set the deeper records too: Sanu Sherpa became the first person to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders twice, a feat of endurance that gets far less attention than the speed runs.

None of these ascents is a template for a first Himalayan trip. They are the work of full-time professional mountaineers operating at the edge of what is survivable, and the edge is real. We wrote about the human cost of the 8,000ers in our guide to the 14 eight-thousanders ranked by height and danger, and about Purja’s earlier no-oxygen mark in his Everest–Lhotse record.

What the numbers really mean

Behind every one of these times is a Nepali team — the rope-fixers, the load-carriers, the guides who go up first and come down last. Purja said it himself, again and again: the record belonged to his team as much as to him. That is the part of the story we most want travellers to carry away. You do not have to climb an eight-thousander to walk in their country. The trails to the foot of these giants are open to anyone reasonably fit, and they are where most people fall in love with the Himalaya in the first place.

Cover photo: Wolfgang Beyer via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).