Our Ex-student stuns mountaineering community with record-breaking ascents.

Nirmal Purja Magar summited the world's fifth-tallest mountain, Makalu, in his native Nepal. At press time, his support team reported that he was still on his way back to his base camp. Superficially, the achievement might be considered a bit pedestrian by modern alpine standards—after all he climbed via the normal route using bottled oxygen and accompanied by a Sherpa guide. But the accomplishment truly comes into focus when one considers that only 48 hours beforehand he had stood on the summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain. And 12 hours before that, he had reached the top of Mount Everest.

In all, Nimsdai or Nims—as he prefers to be known—knocked off six of the world’s highest and most dangerous mountains this spring—Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Kanchenjunga, Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu—in a little less than a month. It's a stunning effort—some would say insane—but for Nims, the feat marks the successful completion of the first phase of a vastly more ambitious project—bagging all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in a seven-month span.

Since alpine legend Reinhold Messner first completed the so-called “8,000-ers” in 1986 (after starting the project in 1970), the list has remained the gold standard on high-altitude résumés. In the intervening 33 years, approximately 40 mountaineers have followed in Messner's footsteps, and many others have died trying to join their number. Most took decades to complete their quest; the current fastest-known time (set by the legendary Pole, Jerzy Kukuczka) stands at seven years, 11 months, and 14 days.

Although the idea to complete them all in a single year has been bandied about before, no climber has actually undertaken the challenge with serious intent. Pulling it off would represent a paradigm shift in the relatively stagnant, commercialized world of high-altitude mountaineering. Now, it seems possible Nims could complete it by October. As remarkable an achievement as that would be, it would likely be met with some grousing by alpinism's old guard, as his grandstanding style and unabashed showmanship—some might add recklessness—are not admired by everyone in elite mountaineering circles.

Source: Gational Geographic