The week-long adjourned game has come to an end. “With full of mixed emotions ; I feel very humble, thankful and proud today. Finally me and my team has got the permit to climb Shishapangma,” the Nepalese climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja announces on the social networks. His patience had been put to a hard test in the last weeks.
Since the end of April, the 36-year-old former soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment has scaled 13 of the 14 eight-thousanders in an unprecedented tour de force. Only the 8,027-meter-high Shishapangma is missing to successfully complete his “Project Possible” (all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months). The Chinese-Tibetan authorities had actually closed the lowest of the eight-thousanders for this fall season – for safety reasons, it was said.
Appeals yielded a result
The Nepalese government, but also many representatives of the mountaineering scene (including myself) had asked the Chinese to make an exception for Nims. Apparently the appeals were not in vain. “Now, you have given me the opportunity, I will deliver my promise,“ says Nirmal Purja. Come on, Nims, rock Shishapangma too!
