Beyond Possible - One Soldier, Fourteen Peaks - Life in the Death Zone - Nimsdai Purja

Written by Nimsdai Purja
Read by Elliot Fitzpatrick
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 128 Kbps

An SBS Gurkha soldier’s account of how his tough Nepali upbringing and the lessons learned in his army life enabled his record-breaking conquest of all 14 of the world’s 8,000m peaks in under seven months. What happens when ambition meets limitless imagination?

Enter Project Possible: a seemingly unreachable goal to climb all 14 ‘death zone’ mountains in record time. The previous record was seven years, 10 months and six days.

I did it in six months.

This is the inside story of my incredible adventure. As a kid in Nepal, barefoot in the mountains, I developed the resilience I needed to later join the Gurkhas, one of the most fearless forces in the British Army. Then in the Special Boat Service I served in some of the world’s most dangerous warzones.

But my next challenge was even more of a test.

In Beyond Possible I reveal how I conquered the world’s most dangerous peaks, breaking several world records in the process. With my elite training, I was able to adapt quickly to the lethal conditions, rarely phased by the lung-burning temperatures or brutal winds. Fear became irrelevant because I had belief.

In the death zone, I came alive. But even after facing countless challenges, right at the peak of my achievements, my world fell apart when my mother was hospitalised.

But I survived and ultimately conquered the most deadly and hostile mountains on the planet. Beyond Possible is my story.