“If you have a dream and dedicate yourself and never give up, you can achieve anything – whatever life throws at you.” With these words, Hari Budha Magar commented on Instagram about his ascent of the 4,892-meter-high Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
The Nepalese mountaineer, who has had both legs amputated, has thus completed his collection of the Seven Summits – at least those that are currently possible for him.
Mont Blanc instead of Elbrus
Due to Russia’s ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine since February 2022, Hari Budha has been unable to climb Europe’s highest mountain, the 5,642-meter-high Elbrus, for almost four years. There are travel warnings for the Russian part of the Caucasus. Magar therefore lists for Europa the 4,806-meter-high Mont Blanc in France.
He had summited the highest mountain in the Alps in 2019. This was followed by Kilimanjaro (Africa, 5,895 meters) in 2020, Mount Everest (Asia, 8,849 meters) in 2023, Denali (North America, 6,190 meters) in 2024, Aconcagua (South America, 6,961 meters) and Puncak Jaya (Oceania, 4,994 meters), also known as Carstensz Pyramid, in 2025 and now Mount Vinson.
Hari Budha was accompanied on last Tuesday’s ascent by his Nepalese compatriots Abiral Rai, Mingma Sherpa, and Jangbu Sherpa. The climb at minus 25 degrees Celsius and high winds was very strenuous, Magar said: “I was literally crawling up on all fours, battling my way up the mountain.”
Bomb explosion in Afghanistan
As a soldier in the British Gurkha Regiment, Hari Budha lost both legs above the knee in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan in 2010. He narrowly survived, but then fell into a deep depression and began drinking excessively. “My son was three years old when I looked into his innocent face,” the mountaineer recalled this life crisis in an interview with the German Outdoor magazine. “At that moment, I knew I had to stop drinking.” With renewed vigor, he threw himself into his mountain adventures.
Hari Budha climbs with special prostheses from the German medical technology company Ottobock. He has different attachments for rock, ice, and snow, which he can change in no time at all. “It only takes seconds,” says the 46-year-old. “You can imagine it being almost as fast as a tire change in Formula 1.”
With his success on Mount Vinson, Hari Budha said on Instagram, he has shown “that with support, adaptation, perseverance people with disabilities can accomplish the impossible.”
