Nirmal Purja, a renowned British-Nepali mountaineer who was celebrated for summiting a cluster of the world’s tallest peaks in record time, was found dead after an avalanche struck Pakistan’s Broad Peak, one of the world’s highest mountains, on Thursday. He was 43.
The influential guiding company he founded, Elite Exped, confirmed the death in a social media post on Saturday.
Mr. Purja’s prodigious climbing achievements inspired a 2021 Netflix documentary. But his reputation was marred when two women said in 2024 that he had made unwelcome sexual advances toward them, allegations he denied.
Along with nine other climbers spread across four teams, Mr. Purja had set off for the summit of Broad Peak early Thursday morning. Tour operators lost contact with the climbers by 9 in the morning local time, but reports of an avalanche only surfaced on Thursday evening.
Hassan Aljabal Ramal, a business partner of Mr. Purja’s, confirmed to The New York Times that Mr. Purja’s body had been found, but did not immediately confirm whether the body had been recovered. After the rescue team in Pakistan suspended its work on Friday evening, local officials said the bodies of several climbers had been located by drone.
Elite Exped said in its post that other climbers had died, naming “his trusted climbing partners and guides, Pur Bahadur Gurung (Yukta) and Nima Sherpa,” and at least three other climbers had been confirmed dead as of Saturday afternoon local time. Local officials did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Nepal’s prime minister, Balendra Shah, posted a tribute to Mr. Purja on social media. “Although the physical journeys of Nirmal Purja and the other fallen climbers have come to an end,” he wrote, “their courage, determination and contributions to mountaineering will endure.”
Nirmal Purja, known as Nimsdai or Nims, was born on July 25, 1983, in the village of Dana in the Myagdi district of Nepal, and grew up in Chitwan, near Kathmandu. In his 2020 memoir, “Beyond Possible,” he wrote that from a young age he had aspired to join the military, like his father and older brothers.
His family was poor, but from a young age he was educated at an English-speaking boarding school. “Everybody slept in a hostel, where the older kids held the power and the teachers beat the children if they ever stepped out of line,” he told National Geographic in 2020. “I had to learn how to survive in such a tough environment.”
He joined the British Army in 2003 as a member of the Gurkhas, Nepali soldiers who have fought for Britain for over 200 years. After serving for six years, he was the first Nepali accepted into the British Special Boat Service, an elite special forces unit of the Royal Navy, and acquired British citizenship while serving.
Mr. Purja wrote in his memoir that he discovered a love of mountaineering during his time in the boat service. While on leave in December 2012, he trekked to Everest Base Camp, and later that month summited Nepal’s Lobuche East peak, which stands at 6,119 meters (20,075 feet). By 2016, he had climbed several major mountains, establishing a reputation as one of Nepal’s best mountaineers.
In 2018, he resigned from the military, forfeiting his pension, to embark on what he called Project Possible, aiming to climb all 14 of the so-called death zone mountains — those higher than 8,000 meters (about 26,000 feet) — in record time.
He started his attempt in April 2019, and climbed six mountains in Nepal in 31 days and five peaks in Pakistan in 23 days. On Everest, he took a photograph of climbers waiting to reach the summit, which went viral and contributed to a debate about dangerous overcrowding and pollution on the mountain.
On Oct. 29, he summited the 14th peak, Shishapangma, in Tibet, meaning he had completed the full cycle in just six months and six days, beating the previous attempt by over seven years. (Researchers later said that he had stopped short of the true geographic peaks of two of the mountains, though he corrected that on later climbs.)
His survivors include his wife, Suchi Purja, and their daughter.
Mr. Purja’s achievement gained worldwide attention and was featured in the Netflix documentary “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible.” In 2023, his record was broken by Kristin Harila and Tenjen Lama Sherpa, who completed the climbs in 92 days.
Mr. Purja then repeated the 14 peaks in 2024, this time without supplemental oxygen. On Monday, he wrote on social media that Broad Peak was the penultimate mountain on his second attempt to summit all 14 peaks without oxygen.
Over the course of his climbing career, Mr. Purja summited 8,000-meter peaks 56 times, including 28 ascents without supplemental oxygen. In January 2021, he was part of a team that made the first successful winter ascent of K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.
That year, with Mingma Gyabu Sherpa and Tejan Gurung, he established Elite Exped, a guiding company that has played a major role in the commercial climbing industry.
Mr. Purja was accused of sexual abuse by female climbers, including a former client of Elite Exped. In a 2024 Times article, Lotta Hintsa, a professional mountaineer and former Miss Finland, described an encounter in her hotel room in which she said Mr. Purja removed her clothes despite her protests.
In the same article, Dr. April Leonardo, an American physician who employed Mr. Purja as a guide on K2, said that he repeatedly propositioned her for sex during the climb, at one point coming into her tent and placing her hand on his crotch. A lawyer for Mr. Purja said that at the time that Mr. Purja “unequivocally denies the allegations of wrongdoing. These allegations are false and defamatory.”
In his memoir, Mr. Purja recalled a close call with an avalanche on Annapurna, one of the “death zone” mountains.
“God knows how much snow smashed over us at full force, hammering and tearing at the tent,” he wrote. “For several seconds the fabric and fiberglass seemed to buck and wrench without breaking. I expected to be swept down the mountain at any second, all of us tumbling over one another, until suddenly, unexpectedly, everything became still again. We’d survived.”
Francesca Regalado contributed reporting.
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