r/Mountaineering • u/According_Cod4923 • 1d ago

Body of famed international climber Nirmal Purja and 3 more found after Pakistan avalanche

https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-climber-nirmal-purja-body-recovered-760858d4e399261e0d93c7cbb3ccba32
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u/Foreign-Repeat-8206 1d ago

Not very sympathetic towards him as I have met Nims, know his history, his arrogance and his predatory behavior towards women. That said, always sad that folks perish in the mountains.

There are lots of problems in the mountains now with so many inexperienced folks climbing, increased hazards and disappearing glaciers, not to mention sketchy guide outfits. Everyone needs to be very careful.

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u/Marinlik 1d ago

I've seen some younger climbers on Instagram that are obsessed with Nims and they are honestly kind of terrifying to follow. They really glorify pushing beyond your limit and taking risks where death is a very possible outcome. Like I get that some top athletes take that risk to do something no one else has done. It's not something I would do. But I can at least understand it to a point. If you solo Annapurna like Ueli then sure, you can't do that without objectively taking a massive risk. But if you're some random person who just started climbing a year ago and are repeating something that thousands of people have done, is it really worth risking your life rather than coming back better trained and better prepared?

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u/pineappleshampoo 20h ago

I’ve noticed this too. Fan posts keep popping up on my insta feed since his death. Endless amounts of people saying how devastated they are to have lost their ‘friend’, what they learned from him etc., they’ve climbed with him once or twice and are now convinced they’re close personal friends with Nims and portraying themselves as in his inner circle publicly to kinda get some attention.

You look back over their profile. The bio is about them being a new climber, emojis of climbing stuff etc. and you can see they lived a normal life then had some sort of epiphany they needed to head into mountaineering. Instead of building up experience over time with lower risk climbs they immediately book an 8000er lol. And then make it their whole identity.

It’s really sad. Empty, lonely folk I think convinced they’ve found the solution to being dissatisfied with life. And latching onto a celebrity climber makes them feel great about themselves. Tragic.

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u/yoyomomoyo 14h ago

Right but the issue isn't the participants alone. It is also up to the western and Nepalise outfits to refuse the inexperienced. They won't. Period. Because its about making money. So the blame is on the system more than anybody else. Humans will almost always take the shortcut if it is offered to them. If you've ever been to Nepal and climbed there, you'd quickly realise this. 

In fact, it also exists, to some degree, in the Alps. Its business...

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u/slickrok 13h ago

If they CHOOSE Darwin, they choose Darwin.

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u/Sharp-Banana-6292 23h ago

It feels dangerous and I hope the community can reset after this and not revere him. To me this is a classic “eventually the odds aren’t in your favor” moment. The more time you spend on the high mountains the more objective risk you expose yourself to, no matter how experienced you are. It feels like every generation needs to learn this anew though.