Everything is possible

“Don’t be afraid to dream big”

“It doesn’t matter where you come from, you can show the world nothing is impossible” Nims Purja MBE.

These are the opening lines to the new Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, featuring Nirmal “Nims”, Purja in his attempt to climb all 14 ‘death zone’, 8000m+ mountains within seven months.

According to Wikipedia only 40 climbers have reached the summit of all 14 8000m peaks, the first of who was Reinhold Messner, and which took him 16 years. Reinhold is also featured in the film and states how, ‘climbing all 14 of the 8000m peaks in one lifetime is very hard’.

For most climbers, the process of climbing one of the 8000m mountains is a two month endeavour and here in 2019, was Nims Purja, a Nepal born British, pretty unknown mountaineer putting a stake in the ground and setting out to climb all 14 peaks within seven months. The previous record was seven years!

It turns out that Nims already has a pretty impressive pedigree, he served in the British Army with the Brigade of Gurkhas, from the age of 18 and then joined the special forces unit the SBS. He left his army career early due to his desire to follow this project, much to the dismay of his elder brother who stopped talking to him for 3 months because of it. The project which everyone told him was Impossible, he named ‘Project Possible’.

Nims wanted to showcase and represent the strength and abilities of the Nepalese climbers. He felt that without the Sherpas most (European or Western) climbers would not achieve any hope of climbing or summiting the big mountains, yet many remain nameless and receive very little thanks or gratitude for their efforts. Nims wanted to change this.

Nims surrounds himself with a Nepalese climbing team; Lakpa dendi Sherpa, Mingma David Sherpa, Geljen Sherpa, Dawa Sherpa, Walung dorchi Sherpa,?and?Geshman Tamang, who work together throughout the project.

The film is inspiring on so many levels not least for the completion of this project but for Nims and his approach, remortgaging his house when funding fell flat, his attitude and love for his country and family and his complete belief in himself, his team and his goal.

Nims and his team risk their own lives, not just by attempting to climb these mountains in such a short period of time, having to carry much of their own kit and on many occassions being the first to climb or summit, so laying many of the lines and foundations for those that follow but also by attempting to rescue two other climbers in trouble on both Annapurna and Kanchenjunga, ‘“It’s?not in my blood to leave a person behind,” Nims said.

At K2, a notoriously difficult mountain to climb, where for every four people to summit, one will die, Nims and his team arrived to find a number of climbers and guides who had failed in their attempts to summit over previous days and been forced to turn back by a number of avalanches. Nims said ‘you could see the fear in their eyes’ and to one particular climber, who was questioning themselves and asking, is it worth it? Nims said ‘don’t listen to others, you need to take chances and risks to make things happen for yourself’.

Nims and his team summited K2 after fixing ropes through the bottleneck section in the early hours of the morning. Following their successful ascent, 24 more climbers were able to summit K2 over the next two days.

Even when the Chinese government said no to climbing Shishapangma as the mountain was closed, meaning a potential end and failure of the project Nims rallied such a wealth of support from governments, social media and communities, the government eventually gave permission to allow the final climb of the project to take place.

Nims during the rescue attempt on Annapurna

? Nirmal Purja Project Possible Ltd

14 Peaks is a fantastic watch and not just for those interested in climbing, or mountaineering. I will leave you with a few more quotes of which there are many many more.

‘If you can inspire one or two people in a good way you can inspire the world’

“We made the impossible possible through team work, good leadership is also necessary”

“Everything in life is possible armed only with determined approach and positive mindset.” Nirmal Purja MBE

Have you seen the documentary and if so what were your takeaways, please do drop me a note and let me know.