14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

Don't be afraid to dream big.

Doesn't matter where you come from.

You can show the world...

nothing is impossible.

There are only 14 mountains in the world higher than 8,000 meters.

The quest to climb these mountains is a story that goes back 100 years.

Above 8,000 meters in the death zone,

it's a very high-stakes game.

The cold, the wind, avalanches.

When a climber gets into trouble

without other strong climbers around them to help,

they're usually left to die.

In the history of high-altitude mountaineering,

there is no one respected more than Reinhold Messner.

He was the first climber to summit all the fourteen 8,000-meter peaks.

It took him 16 years.

Fear is always in you.

You have the feeling, "I am only safe if I'm back in base camp."

"Back in civilization."

Climbing all the 8,000-meter peaks in one lifetime is very hard.

Normally, for a single eight-thousander, it's a major endeavor.

It's a huge two-month expedition just to climb one 8,000-meter peak.

But sometime in the spring of 2019,

the mountaineering world started talking about this crazy guy from Nepal.

He was someone that nobody had ever heard of.

Everyone was asking,

"Who the hell is Nims Purja?"

All right, mate.

The fastest time to climb

all the fourteen 8,000-meter peaks was seven years.

If I can stay alive, I can do this in seven months.

This is about inspiring the human race.

The climbing community of Nepal

have always been the pioneers of eight-thousanders,

but they never got the respect they deserve.

I want to represent the Nepalese climbing community.

My mission was divided into three phases.

Phase 1 would be Nepal.

I would need to be the first climber in history

to summit six 8,000-meter peaks in the spring season.

Phase 2 would be in Pakistan,

where I would need to summit K2,

and you've got to be lucky to survive that mountain.

And for Phase 3, I would need to get permission

from the Chinese government to climb in Tibet.

I was told that my plan was impossible.

So I decided to name it Project Possible.

It was a crazy idea.

But it wasn't a surprise to me.

He's constantly thinking... He's constantly thinking of something.

I don't know what. But his brain doesn't rest at all.

We got married when we were very young.

For her to let me go and do this huge project...

Suchi is an amazing human.

She's mentally super strong.

Well, I understood the risk,

uh, but I think it was in his character.

He's very driven.

Finally!

Yeah, finally we're going to do it. Don't worry, I'll be fine.

Make sure you look after yourself.

It was so dangerous.

But I knew it was gonna be life-changing for him.

On this project, I will be supported by a team of Nepalese climbers,

who would climb with me

on different mountains throughout the expedition.

I have to trust these guys with my life.

But I also knew that it was going to be fun.

Good morning, everybody, guys!

Project Possible team!

Mingma is the strongest climber I have ever met.

My right-hand man. Okay?

For me, mountaineering is all about exploring.

Geljen is the best dancer on the planet.

Everyone in the team treats each other like brothers.

We party together.

Lakpa Dendi, he can carry the size of a house.

I had hope that if we all pulled together, it was possible.

This was a good thing for Nepal.

Here's my brother Gesman! Hey!

Gesman, he is willing to put everything on the line.

No one had ever attempted anything like Project Possible.

We had to be part of this.

The established way of behaving in mountaineering

is to be very humble and to understate one's goals.

Nims is very much the opposite. He's very outspoken.

This is me, I got abdomen, but this gonna go away, you know.

When he told me about Project Possible,

it was just mind-boggling.

You're dealing with weather windows,

the logistics, the route conditions...

and it's extremely dangerous.

I thought, great ambition here, but not likely to succeed at all.

Sometimes you got to focus on something that's very important to you.

I'll make this happen.

And it's going to go away for sure. Boom.

Yeah!

It doesn't matter how many times you've been there

and how many times you've seen it.

Your mind just can't comprehend how big Annapurna is.

It gives you this sense of going to battle

and you're going to fight something pretty mean.

For every three climbers that make it to the summit,

one dies trying.

I'm Geljen Sherpa. I'm going to summit Annapurna.

Hello! I'm Mingma David Sherpa.

I first came to hear about Nims through my uncle

with whom he climbed his first mountain, Lobuche Peak.

I told Nims, "I will support you as a brother,

and I will give everything I can for the project."

I was leading the fixing team.

You set the ropes, opening the route for others.

This is what it takes to set fixed lines.

See how tired he is, my brother.

You know, and see the sun. It's been a struggle today.

Don, my brother.

I was on Annapurna at the same time as Nims.

This is my friend Don,

trying to trailblaze on six feet of deep snow.

I've made five different attempts

over 13 years to try to make it to the top of this mountain

and haven't been able to do it.

There is no other climb that I've ever been on

where the mountain is literally crumbling down on top of you.

It's terrifying.

Okay.

You feel like you have no control.

Just in time.

Well, that's just off our shoulders.

The weather was good,

but because of the amount of fresh snowfall, it was really hard.

It's super deep.

Somewhere it's waist-deep.

After fresh snowfall, there are frequent avalanches.

That was super tough.

There was a point where I gave up,

and I just said, "Nims, this is not going to work."

Giving up is not in the blood, sir. It's not in the blood.

That was the first daylight for me about his project.

This guy believed that they were going to do it.

And they pushed through.

Summit!

Yes.

See that, man?

I couldn't be prouder of this guy.

Every time I was like, "Eh, man, things don't look like

they're gonna go through on this, uh, Annapurna climb."

He's like, "I believe." Here we are standing on the summit.

- Thank you so much. - Love that.

Love you, brother. That means a lot to me.

Yes!

Look at that view.

I was so happy at the summit.

But I was like, "Well, Nims,

the clock starts now."

We came down from the summit, got to Camp 4, and slept that night.

In the morning, Nims poked his head inside the tent.

He said, "We got a problem."

"There's a climber from a different team, he didn't come down in the night."

"He's still up there."

There was a helicopter that was flying in to see where he was.

This is a really morbid thing to say.

We were hoping that he had passed in the night.

To consider that he had survived that long at that altitude,

and without oxygen was a pretty horrific thought.

He waved as we went by.

I just started to cry.

I thought, you know, "What if that was me?"

He was just gonna die in hope.

So we made the decision that we had to help.

Who's gonna be on the rescue team?

Me, Mingma, Gesman and Geljen.

It's almost on the margins of the helicopter's limit.

I've been a mountaineer for 10 years.

I've been involved in more than 100 rescues.

We were tired and didn't have much energy.

I was scared about how the helicopter

would drop us from above. I was very nervous.

Bravery doesn't even remotely describe

what those guys had to do to go back up.

You finally summit one of the most dangerous mountains in the world,

and now you gotta go back up there?

It is a roll of the dice.

Hello!

Your friends are here, okay?

You go home now.

Don't worry. Oxygen, oxygen, we'll give oxygen.

Quick, quick!

Every second means a life to him.

We knew that the helicopter couldn't come at night.

So, we had to get him down to Camp 4 as fast as possible.

You're very strong!

We go home, okay?

Gesman, make a pillow for him.

That night we just had to slap ourself to keep us awake,

and we just took him down to Camp 3 at 6:00 a.m.

Only five minutes before the helicopter came.

I immediately went over and I put my hand on his neck.

He was alive and breathing, but barely.

We had to get him to the hospital as soon as possible.