Nirmal Purja obituary

Former Gurkha soldier who became one of the most celebrated and controversial mountaineers of his generation Nirmal Purja made his name in environments where life is reduced to its most elemental, and dangerous, terms. He believed, with an almost evangelical fervour, that “with relentless self-belief, anything is possible”. He spent his life testing the limits of that belief, first in military service and later on the world’s highest and most dangerous mountains. He has died aged 43 in an avalanche on Broad Peak, an 8,051-metre mountain in Pakistan. Purja was the most celebrated and controversial mountaineer of the past decade. His ambitious, no-holds-barred approach to high-altitude climbing brought a new emphasis to the world’s highest peaks, prioritising speed, visibility and multiple back-to-back ascents within a single season. His methods helped propel Himalayan mountaineering into the influencer age, reshaping the way people saw, and climbed, the world’s tallest mountains. He was also an astute self-promoter, frequently broadcasting his climbs and exploits from the high camps themselves. In a relatively short climbing career, Purja amassed a remarkable collection of records.