Nimsdai: Who Is Nirmal Purja, the 14-Peaks Climber?

Nimsdai is the name the world now knows for Nirmal Purja, the Nepalese soldier-turned-mountaineer who rewrote what people believed was humanly possible at extreme altitude. Born in a hill village in Myagdi, he served as a Gurkha and then in British special forces before turning to the highest mountains on earth. If you have watched a Himalayan climbing film in the last few years, scrolled adventure social media, or read about record-breaking expeditions on Everest, you have almost certainly come across Nimsdai and his now-famous motto that nothing is impossible.

This guide explains who Nimsdai really is, what he actually achieved, and why he has become one of Nepal's most recognisable modern figures — using only well-documented facts from reputable sources.

Key takeaways

• Nimsdai is Nirmal Purja MBE, a Nepalese mountaineer and former Gurkha and UK Special Forces (SBS) soldier.
• His 2019 Project Possible climbed all 14 eight-thousanders in six months and six days, with bottled oxygen.
• He was part of the team that made the first winter ascent of K2 in January 2021 — the last great unclaimed prize in mountaineering.
• He later summited all 14 peaks without supplemental oxygen, finishing on Shishapangma in October 2024.
• In July 2025 his team announced he had reached 50 successful 8,000-metre summits, a world first.
• The Netflix film 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (2021) made his story globally famous.

Who is Nimsdai?

"Nimsdai" combines Nims, the short form of his first name Nirmal, with dai, the Nepali word for elder brother. Adding dai to a name is an everyday mark of warmth and respect in Nepal, so the nickname is roughly "brother Nims." (If you are curious how titles like this work, see our note on Nepali honorifics.)

According to his Wikipedia biography, Nirmal Purja was born on 25 July 1983 in Dana, in the Myagdi District of western Nepal, into a farming family, and grew up partly in the lowland Terai region of Chitwan. His father had served as a Gurkha soldier — a thread that would shape Nims's own path.

From the hills to the special forces

Purja joined the Brigade of Gurkhas in 2003. The Gurkhas are Nepali soldiers who have served in the British Army for more than two centuries and remain renowned for their courage; you can read more in our piece on the Gurkhas and their famous khukuri knife. In 2009 he was accepted into the Royal Navy's Special Boat Service (SBS), becoming the first Gurkha to join that elite unit. Across roughly 16 years in uniform — about six as a Gurkha and ten with UK Special Forces — he built the discipline and physical base that later defined his climbing.

Project Possible: 14 peaks in 7 months

The achievement that made Nimsdai a household name in the climbing world is Project Possible, his 2019 bid to summit all 14 of the world's eight-thousanders — every mountain on earth above 8,000 metres (about 26,000 feet) — within seven months.

He started on Annapurna on 23 April 2019 and finished on Shishapangma on 29 October 2019, completing the full set in six months and six days with the aid of bottled oxygen. To put that in perspective, his own materials and Guinness World Records note that the previous record for climbing all 14 had stood at just under eight years.

The records inside the record

Project Possible was not one feat but a cluster of them. During the mission Purja set marks including the most 8,000-metre peaks in a single spring season (six) and the fastest ascents of the world's three and five highest mountains. The opening phase alone — Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Kangchenjunga, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu — was completed by late May 2019.

| Project Possible at a glance | Detail | | --- | --- | | Goal | All 14 eight-thousanders in 7 months | | Time taken | 6 months, 6 days (Apr–Oct 2019) | | Oxygen | Supplemental (bottled) oxygen used | | Previous record | Just under 8 years | | Documentary | 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (Netflix, 2021) |

It is worth noting, in fairness, that the speed record for all 14 peaks was later surpassed: in 2023, Kristin Harila and Tenjen (Lama) Sherpa summited all 14 in 92 days. Nims's place in history rests on having first proven the compressed timescale was achievable at all — and on the records he kept setting afterward.

The first winter ascent of K2

Of all Nimsdai's climbs, one stands out even among specialists. On 16 January 2021, Purja was part of an all-Nepali team of ten that achieved the first winter ascent of K2, the world's second-highest mountain at 8,611 metres.

K2 had been the only eight-thousander never climbed in winter, and it was widely regarded as the last great unclaimed objective in high-altitude mountaineering. National Geographic reported the Nepali team's success as a historic milestone. Notably, Purja made the winter summit without supplemental oxygen — the only member of the group to do so. For more on why this mountain commands such respect, our guide to the highest mountains in Nepal and the wider Himalayas gives useful context (K2 itself sits on the China–Pakistan border, not in Nepal).

Climbing all 14 again — without oxygen

After 2019, Nimsdai set himself an even harder target: to summit all 14 eight-thousanders without supplemental oxygen. Climbing in the "death zone" above 8,000 metres without bottled oxygen sharply raises the danger; our explainer on the Everest death zone describes why so little oxygen makes the body fail.

According to his team and Guinness World Records, he completed this no-oxygen quest on Shishapangma on 4 October 2024, with the overall effort spanning from Kangchenjunga in May 2022 to that final summit. His 2024 season was billed by his own organisation as a year of multiple new records capped by finishing the 14 peaks without oxygen.

Fifty summits and counting

The records did not stop there. In July 2025, Nepali outlet DCnepal and others reported that Purja had become the first person to record 50 successful summits of 8,000-metre peaks, reaching the milestone on Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. Coverage noted that 22 of those summits were achieved without supplemental oxygen — an unprecedented tally at the time of reporting.

Beyond the summits: film, books and giving back

Part of why Nimsdai is so widely known is that he is also a storyteller and organiser, not only a climber.

14 Peaks and Beyond Possible

The Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, released on 29 November 2021, dramatised the 2019 mission and introduced Nims to a mainstream audience far beyond mountaineering. He also wrote a best-selling memoir, Beyond Possible, telling the story in his own words.

Elite Exped and the Nimsdai Foundation

Nims co-founded the guiding company Elite Exped (with Mingma David Sherpa) to lead expeditions in the Himalaya, and established the charitable Nimsdai Foundation. The Foundation focuses on supporting big-mountain communities through education, emergency aid and environmental work, including a high-profile clean-up effort to remove waste from the high peaks. He has also been associated with environmental advocacy, and the UN Environment Programme lists him among the voices it has worked with on climate and mountains.

If his story inspires you to walk in the high country yourself — at a far gentler altitude — start with our beginner-friendly guides to trekking in Nepal and the classic Everest Base Camp trek, where many travellers first glimpse the giants Nims has spent his life climbing.

Why Nimsdai matters for Nepal

For Nepal, Nimsdai represents more than personal records. For decades, Nepali climbers — especially Sherpas — did the hardest work on the world's highest mountains while foreign expedition leaders received most of the headlines. Project Possible and the K2 winter climb put Nepali mountaineers front and centre of the global story, led and crewed by Nepalis.

He has been described as a Global Goodwill Ambassador for Nepal tourism, and his visibility has drawn fresh attention to Nepal as the heart of high-altitude adventure. As with any prominent public figure, opinions on individual expeditions and claims vary within the climbing community, and records in this fast-moving sport continue to change. What is not in dispute is that Nimsdai widened the public sense of what is achievable in the mountains — and did it under a Nepali flag.

Sources

• Nirmal Purja — Wikipedia
• Project Possible — Nimsdai official site
• Nimsdai completes 14 Peaks without supplemental oxygen — Nimsdai
• 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible — Wikipedia
• Nepali Mountaineers Achieve Historic Winter First on K2 — National Geographic
• The Man Who Climbed K2 in Winter Without Supplemental Oxygen — Climbing
• Nimsdai 'Nims' Purja sets new world record: 50 x 8,000er summits — DCnepal
• Nirmal Purja becomes first person to summit 8,000m peaks 50 times — SnowBrains
• Nirmal Purja — UN Environment Programme
• Nimsdai Purja — Elite Exped