09/10.19PR
OJ
EC
T^
PO
SS
IB
LE Nirmal Purja’s audacious quest to summit the tallest
mountains in the world—faster than ever before
By ANNA CALLAGHAN
RACING
THE
CLOCK
ADVENTURE
2019
When South Korean moun-
taineer Kim Chang-Ho stood
at the 29,029-foot summit of
Mount Everest in 2013, he set a
new record for the fastest time
climbing all 14 of the world’s
8,000-meter peaks: seven years,
ten months, six days. It’s a stout
record, and achieving it was ex-
pensive and a feat of planning. It
was also treacherous, racing the
clock in the Death Zone.
Still, Nirmal Purja, a 34-year-
old Nepali climber, is on track
to shatter Kim’s record. Last
spring, Purja summited Anna-
purna, Dhaulagiri, Kanchen-
junga, Everest, Lhotse, and
Makalu, knocking out those last
three in just 48 hours. If all goes
as intended, he’ll finish the re-
maining eight peaks by Novem-
ber 1, just seven months after he
began. That’s one 8,000-meter
peak every two weeks for just
over half a year.
“In part it’s a logistics chal-
lenge,” says alpinist Conrad
Anker. “But once that’s taken
care of, you still need the fitness
to reach the summit.”
Unlike many of the Nepali and
Sherpa climbers who shuttle up
and down the world’s tallest
mountains at a staggering pace,
Purja didn’t grow up at altitude.
He’s from Chitwan, a prov-
ince about 90 miles southeast
of Kathmandu that sits at 644
feet, roughly the same altitude
as Birmingham, Alabama. It
wasn’t until 2012, after he grew
tired of telling people that he’d
never seen Everest, that he decided to trek to
Base Camp and get his first taste of the Hi-
malayas. He fell in love with them and began
climbing every chance he got. “I discovered
that I actually did well at altitude,” he says.
Purja left his job as a special-forces soldier
in 2018 to attempt the speed record. He’s
calling his quest, which he’s partly financing
through GoFundMe, Project Possible. “I’m
here to teach young people about human po-
tential so they can follow,” says Purja, who
was on the flank of Gassherbrum I as Out-
side went to press. “I want people to believe
in their dreams and know that they have the
ability to go for it.”
Even if Purja hits a snag and doesn’t com-
plete the project this fall, he’ll still likely
break Kim’s record—even if it takes him an-
other year (or five).