Beyond Possible: One Soldier, Fourteen Peaks — My Life In The Death Zone

by Nimsdai Purja

Quitting wasn’t in my blood, even in a near-death crisis. I wasn’t a sheep waiting to be prodded by the shepherd; I was a lion and I refused to walk and talk with the rest.

As I planted my boots in the shifting snow, I told myself that death was going to come for me at some point – maybe on a mountain during Project Possible, maybe in old age, decades down the line – but not on Nanga Parbat, and not within the next heartbeat. Not today. Not today.

But to me it presented an opportunity to prove to the world that everything, anything, was possible if an individual dedicated their heart and mind to a plan.

I’d overreached and the mountains were delivering their first major lesson: Never burn yourself out unnecessarily.

Every now and then, the leading Sherpa would take a break from making a path through the waist-high drifts with his footsteps, allowing one of his teammates to take over for a while. He would then fall to the back of the line until it was his turn to head the charge once more, while the rest of us matched his prints in the snow, which made for fairly easy work. This was a technique I would come to know as trailblazing and with his selfless industry, the lead Sherpa was helping the expedition party to follow a much smoother route upwards. I respected the effort that every guide was making.

Wow, this is my shit, I thought, admiring the deep footfalls I’d left for the expedition. I’d been working without too much thought, operating in the flow state that athletes mention whenever they break world records, or win championships. I was in the zone.

‘Brother,’ I thought. ‘You’re a badass at high altitude.’

From an early age, I believed in the power of positive thinking; I didn’t allow myself to become poleaxed by illnesses, or chronic ailments that carried the potential to afflict other individuals for years. I felt like a human antibiotic because I’d taught myself to think that way: I trusted myself to heal. I believed. And the same attitude eventually powered me into the British military, where I had next-level resilience under pressure. It surrounded me like a force field and I soon learned that if a warrior had relentless self-belief, anything was possible.

One of the more famous tests in the Gurkha’s Central Selection phase was the Doko Race, in which applicants were ordered to carry bamboo baskets on their head. At that time, each one was filled with thirty kilos of sand and every potential Gurkha had to complete an uphill circuit of five kilometres in under forty-eight minutes.

Firstly, the weather was awful, and the wind and rain was so strong, it seemed to be coming down sideways.

‘My life doesn’t mean anything here. But reputation does. That’s why I’m doing this job properly.’

At times I’d hear stories about operations that were going on away from the realms of our deployment: hostage rescue jobs, hard arrests on serious Taliban players and door-kicking raids, all of them performed by the Special Air Service (SAS), or Special Boat Service (SBS). These shadowy regiments made up the UK Special Forces and as far as I was concerned, their work represented a step up, even on the Gurkhas.

After six years with the Gurkhas, I was moving on. My moment to join the military elite had arrived.

Getting out of bed in the middle of the night with the rain hammering down outside was a demoralising experience, but I pushed through. When the snow swept in, I resisted any temptations to hit the snooze button. Emotional control was only one of the many traits I’d need to possess in order to become an elite soldier.

‘Today I will give 100 per cent and survive’, I thought at the beginning of each day. ‘I’ll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes’.

the penultimate day of the Hills Phase was a speed march over almost thirty kilometres. This was followed by the infamous final march – a test of endurance over more than sixty kilometres to be completed while carrying a heavy Bergen rucksack, weapon, water and supplies. The lot weighed around eighty pounds.

In the face of my toughest challenge yet, I hadn’t cracked. I’d bent and flexed. I was malleable.

I’ll just have to hang in here. These bastards might try to break me, but I’m going to last the course no matter what. It was their job to crush my spirit; mine was to fight on to the very end.

I was able to stay calm under extreme pressure because of my training and experience, but also because the Gurkha spirit kept me motivated during tough times. We had a reputation to upkeep: we were known as being one of the toughest fighting forces in the world and I was determined to maintain that image.

I had a code: bravery over everything else. And there was no other way for me to live.

Word spread that I’d been hurt in a gunfight and the squadron’s welfare officer had even called Suchi to explain how I’d suffered a bullet wound, though no extra details were passed on. Having become understandably freaked out, she called the base for an update. Not that I had any idea. As I rested up, my sergeant major knocked on the door. ‘Fucking hell, you Gurkhas!’ he laughed. ‘Do you guys not bother telling your family you’re OK?’ What do you mean? ‘Your wife, she’s called, wanting to know you’re still in one piece.’ I hit the roof and called Suchi back angrily.

I explained to Suchi that the only time she truly had to stress was if two uniformed officers wearing black ties from the Royal Marines ever knocked on our front door, and by then it would be too late. Other than that, she was to carry on as if everything was fine. That might sound like a strange attitude to some people, but it was one of the many defence mechanisms I carried with me to manage what was a very chaotic role.

But my transfer had already been set in place and there was no getting around it. Luckily, a happy twist was coming. ‘Look, Nims, we’ll give you four weeks leave rather than the standard three,’ said my sergeant major. ‘How does that sound?’ This was both good news and bad. The good: I’d previously promised my wife Suchi that we’d take a beach holiday when my next period of leave was granted – I was certainly looking forward to a little rest and recuperation. The bad: there was no way I’d last four weeks sleeping on a beach lounger, reading, listening to music, staring out at sea, sunbathing. Boredom would kick in within five minutes. Instead, I spied an opportunity. Maybe I could climb Everest?

The glass-half-empty attitude went against everything I’d been taught in the military, where grumbling or giving up wasn’t considered an effective strategy. If ever problems or challenges came my way, I was supposed to find solutions, having been trained to adapt and then survive.

I knew I had to lose the negative internal chit-chat, and fast. Whenever I’d been in life-or-death events in the past, I had used Suchi to restore my focus and a sense of determination. I’d think of her during gun battles whenever my unit was pinned back by enemy fighters – the emotions were fuel and I was able to reset myself and then concentrate on the job in hand. Now I’d use the thought of her, waiting for me to return home, as the inspiration to push up towards shelter at Camp 2. I rummaged around in my pockets and found my phone, recording a brief video message.

The divide existing between good and bad decisions during war was even narrower in mountaineering, because the extremes of life were so dramatic on 8,000-metre peaks.

Knowing the trip would change both our lives forever, we started our climb, the pair of us hoping for the best, silencing any talk of the worst.

The most important part of any climb was to get back down, quickly and safely.

The Himalayan prayer flags fluttered behind me. At that moment, I was the highest person on earth; it felt like a life-defining event, and I took off my goggles to feel the cold air against my eyes.

Here’s a controversial reality: on an 8,000-metre peak, the attitude every person for themself sometimes rings tragically true. People climb, people fail to operate effectively, and people die; badly injured individuals usually go through a moment when their death becomes inevitable to everyone else around them.

A team of Sherpas rushed from a nearby tent and dragged us both to safety, and once sheltered from the freezing winds, I summoned up enough strength to call Base Camp. ‘Guys, this is Nims. I’m at Camp 4 with Seema. She’s in a bad way, but the rescue team is looking after her now . . .’ There was a crackle on the other end of the line. One of Seema’s expedition buddies was shouting excitedly. In the background, I heard other voices as people gathered around the radio. ‘Nims, that’s amazing! Thank you.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you OK?’

My only chance of escaping any unwanted attention outside of the Himalayas was to apply a little emotional pressure. ‘I’m a member of UK Special Forces, I’ll lose my job if this story comes out,’ I said. ‘Please don’t say anything.’ My request was passed down the line.

In the aftermath of Seema’s solo rescue, I’d learned a serious lesson: by using oxygen during my expedition, it had been possible to save her. Without it, the chances of me summoning up enough energy to conduct a rescue would have been slim to none. For that reason, from now on, I was climbing above the higher camps on an 8,000-er with bottled air, even though it wasn’t considered the purest form of high-altitude climbing by some sections of the mountaineering scene. But who cared? Nobody was in a position to dictate to me why or how I climbed the mountains, in much the same way that I didn’t have the right to dictate to others.

I knew that if I could climb Everest, Lhotse and Makalu, the reputations of every institution I’d ever believed in would amplify, as would the efforts of my brothers within them. I also fancied putting my limits to the test, like a runner who sets out to do a five-kilometre run one morning, but ends up doing ten . . . because they can. The mountains were there to be climbed. Did I have the minerals to take them on?

This was an ethos I’d long applied to life: if I ever got up in the morning and told myself that I was going to do three hundred push-ups that day, I made sure to do them, wholeheartedly, because to skip the effort would be to break a commitment, and breaking commitments led to failure. But I also understood that getting angry about the situation wasn’t going to help. Military training had taught me it was imperative to remain emotionally strong: flipping a negative event into positive momentum was the only way to remain focused on my primary objective.

When I eventually topped out, I then dropped to Lhotse with a new Sherpa, pushing on to Camp 4. I looked at my watch at its summit. I’d been climbing for ten hours and fifteen minutes. Now only Makalu remained untested. Full disclosure: at that point I had no idea I’d broken the world record for climbing Everest and Lhotse in such quick succession. It wasn’t my aim, only topping three peaks had been in my sightlines, but when I was told at Base Camp that the previous best had been twenty hours, I was shocked. I’d accidentally cut nearly ten hours from the fastest registered time.

As the hours passed and the drinking became even sloppier, they couldn’t believe I’d passed up such a generous offer. The debate warmed up to the point where a fight looked set to explode. Then Nishal made his final attempt at twisting my arm. ‘But no one will know!’ he shouted. ‘I will! Sure, I could lie to the whole world. I could make out I’ve climbed all three mountains from bottom to top, but I won’t lie to myself, brother. No way. I’m doing this properly.’ Through the fug of beer, the guys around us gradually came to understand my motives. I explained to everyone that I’d appreciated the gesture, but Makalu was now so much more than the scaling of another peak, or one more achievement on a bucket list of mountains. It was about conquering the last in a hat trick of Himalayan peaks, but in the right way, with integrity, which was important because the effort was a moment of self-discovery on what I could truly achieve if I threw all my physical and psychological resources at a bold expedition idea.

And I smashed it. Having left Makalu’s base camp twenty-four hours later, brutally hungover, I blasted to the peak, all 8,485 metres of it in one hit, leading from the front with my small team and trailblazing through heavy snow, high wind, and disorientating cloud cover until I’d reached the top. This in itself was an achievement. Nobody had climbed Makalu that season, though a number of teams had tried, only to be pushed back by the treacherous conditions.

I had broken two world records – by climbing Everest and Lhotse in ten hours, fifteen minutes and then topping Everest, Lhotse and Makalu in five days. I was also the first person to climb Everest twice, then Lhotse and Makalu in the same season. And I didn’t even feel done.

I’d also been notified that an honour from the Queen, an MBE, was being arranged as a reward for my outstanding work in high-altitude mountaineering – this included my saving the G200E, rescuing Seema on Everest, and breaking those world records on Everest, Lhotse and Makalu.

When my records were announced, a number of highly regarded mountaineers were quick to point to the fact I’d used oxygen. But fuck that: my ambitions mainly hinged on pace. I was a trailblazer and I led from the front, fixing my own lines – that was Nims-style.

As far as I was concerned, there were no set rules when climbing through the Death Zone. Everyone worked differently and I hadn’t complained that some of those same critics had stepped into my footfalls, or used the lines I’d set on their own summit push, hours after my drive to the top, but the snobbery was still annoying, so I worked to make it inspiring. I used it as fuel and in the post-expedition buzz of my climbs through the Himalayas, I decided to up my game. If I could take three of the world’s largest mountains in five days, maybe I had it in me to climb the five tallest peaks in an equally impressive time: Everest, K2, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse and Makalu in, say, eighty days? The idea gnawed at me for weeks until I decided to act upon it.

The officer shook his head. There was no way he would authorise so much leave, he explained. It was too risky. Also if it became known that a Special Forces operator was climbing K2, which was located on the border of Pakistan and China, it might invite a terrorist attack. ‘It’s just not doable, Nims,’ he said. I felt deflated, but I wasn’t going to abandon my dream and the toing and froing over my expedition hopes went on for months. On some days, I felt that high command might be relenting. On others, they became increasingly resistant, until eventually, I decided to take matters into my own hands. ‘Well, that’s it then,’ I thought. ‘I’m going to quit.’

I was thirty-five years old at the time and knew that by resigning from my military commitments, I’d give myself the opportunity to think bigger and more boldly in a challenge of my own making. So rather than climbing the five tallest mountains in eighty days, what was stopping me from topping all fourteen Death Zone mountains in the quickest time imaginable? I struggled to think of too many pitfalls. Only politics or money. Or maybe an avalanche, or a crevasse, if I’m really unlucky.

Also, I was comfortable with the idea of going out in my thirties. Hanging on until the age of eighty-something, a time when I’d become unable to look after myself, held very little appeal. I wanted to leave while going out at full tilt.

So, the field was fairly small but impressive and, on average, several years seemed to represent the likeliest timeframe. Judging by the way I’d worked through Everest, Lhotse and Makalu in five days – not to mention Dhaulagiri in a fortnight – it was within my reach to go quicker. The only question was by how much.

I’ve only climbed four of these mountains before . . . so how about seven months? That should be enough time to climb all fourteen, give or take a few weeks.

Most of all, though, I loved the thought of ripping up the rulebook. If I could show kids and adults alike what was humanly achievable, then my far-fetched ambitions might inspire others to think big; to push themselves in ways that were previously considered unimaginable. It also helped that I might give the world a crazy story to remember.

‘Oh, Nirmal,’ she said. ‘Is it because we’re very ill and it’s such a burden to look after us? I think you are doing this because you want to kill yourself.’ ‘It’s cool, Mum,’ I said. ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to show the world what I am capable of – what we can all do, if we put our minds to something. And I’m going to come back stronger. I’ll be a different Nims.’

Friends laughed whenever I talked about Project Possible; fellow operators took the piss. That was fair enough, the goal was supposed to be tough, unrealistic even, but only because nobody had achieved anything quite like it before. But then, space travel and the four-minute mile had both been considered impossible ahead of their realisation, too. At the turn of the twentieth century, the idea that someone might step foot on the moon was the type of fantasy that kids had only read about in Jules Verne novels. If somebody had informed a young Neil Armstrong, then a test pilot on the verge of greatness, that his dream wasn’t achievable, would he have listened? No way. Of course, there was a chance I might fail, as there had been during the moon landings. Certainly, the odds I’d be killed along the way were fairly short. In the aftermath of screwing up, people were set to laugh, or to say, ‘I warned him.’ But at least I wouldn’t die wondering, what if?