The character arc of Nirmal Purja
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 25 July 1983 in Dana, a village in the Myagdi District of Nepal, the fourth of five children of parents cut off by both their families for marrying across castes. Between then and 2026 sit a childhood he has described as having no flip-flops, an English-speaking school paid for by three older brothers, the Brigade of Gurkhas joined in 2003, the Special Boat Service in 2009, all fourteen eight-thousanders climbed between April and October 2019 in six months and six days, three of them inside forty eight hours, and the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021. He died on Broad Peak on 30 July 2026.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Nirmal Purja?
No flip-flops as a boy, and fourteen peaks in six months.
He was born in a village sixteen hundred metres up in the Myagdi District, the fourth of five children. His father had been a Gurkha soldier in the Indian Army and his mother came from a farming family, and because they were of different castes their marriage was disapproved of and both were cut off financially and socially by their families. He has said plainly what that meant: they came from a really poor family, and as a child he did not even have flip-flops. When he was four the family moved lower down, near Kathmandu. His three older brothers became Gurkha soldiers and used their pay to send him to an English-speaking boarding school.
He joined the Brigade of Gurkhas himself in 2003, and in 2009 he was accepted into the Royal Navy's Special Boat Service, the first Gurkha ever to join that unit. He served as a cold-weather warfare specialist and took a postgraduate diploma in security management at a British university. He was thirty five before he became a full-time mountaineer.
Then he did the thing he is remembered for. Between April and October 2019 he climbed all fourteen of the world's peaks above eight thousand metres, in six months and six days, using bottled oxygen. The previous best was nearly eight years. He was the first person to stand on the summits of Everest, Lhotse and Makalu within forty eight hours. In 2021 he and nine other Nepalese climbers made the first winter ascent of K2, the last of the fourteen never climbed in winter, and they walked the final metres to the summit together singing, so that no single person would be first. He still holds the record for the fastest ascent of all fourteen without supplementary oxygen. In July 2026 he and nine other climbers were killed by an avalanche on the Pakistani side of Broad Peak.
The moments
Nirmal Purja's timeline.
The 1980s
Born in Dana
Everyday. A village at sixteen hundred metres, under one of the fourteen.
Cut off by both families
Setback, and it changed everything. Two families said no to the marriage, and the children grew up with nothing.
The 1990s
His brothers pay the fees
Milestone, and it changed everything. Three soldiers' wages, spent on their youngest brother's schooling.
The 2000s
The Brigade of Gurkhas
Milestone, and it changed everything. The same regiment as his father and his three brothers.
First Gurkha in the SBS
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first of his people ever to get in.
The 2010s
Leave the service
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go for the fourteen, taken, or stay in uniform. He finished all fourteen in six months and six days, and made the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021.
The project begins
Milestone, and it changed everything. He left the military and gave himself seven months to do what had taken others eight years.
Three summits in two days
Milestone, and it changed everything. The three of them, inside two days, on the same legs.
Fourteen, in six months
Milestone, and it changed everything. Every mountain over eight thousand metres, in half a year.
The 2020s
K2 in winter
Milestone, and it changed everything. Ten Nepalese climbers, the last unclimbed winter summit, taken together.
The record is beaten
Setback, and it changed his direction. Somebody went faster, which is what records are for.
Broad Peak
Setback, and it changed everything. Forty three years old, on an eight thousand metre mountain, with nine others.
Nepal has a generation of climbers who grew up watching him, and they are the record now. What his six months set moving is bigger than any of the numbers: the high mountains had been a story about foreign expeditions with Nepalese support, and he made them a story about Nepalese climbers with their own names on the summits.
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Sources
- Nirmal Purja, English Wikipedia biography.
- National Geographic interview on his childhood in Myagdi.
- Expedition records for the fourteen eight-thousanders, 2019, and the winter ascent of K2, 2021.