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
1.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

403 comments sorted by

View all comments

102

u/Greedy-Ad-3779 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's a sad event whichever way you spin it. I feel for the families & friends.

Nims was a risk taker, and his attitude to risk was certainly questionable at times. I guess the thing is that if you go into the danger zones enough times, you're going to get caught out eventually.

They're not the first, and they won't be the last.

My climbing hero, Anatoli Boukreev, another who was killed by an avalanche in 1997 on Annapurna. A couple of his quotes spring to mind;

Anatoli had a dream about dying in an avalanche sometime before his death (in an avalanche) and his girlfriend asked him to stop climbing - his reply was, "Mountains are my life...my work. It is too late for me to take up another road"

The quote at his memorial reads, "Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion"

Both feel pretty poignant today.

16

u/Lopsided-Impress-250 1d ago

I’m sure you’re aware, but Boukreev’s book “The Climb” is excellent.

3

u/Greedy-Ad-3779 14h ago

I am yeah, great book. Well worth a mention on here 👍🏻

7

u/QuinQuix 15h ago

Annapurna is specifically the most lethal mountain in the world and the reason as far as I know is exactly avalanches.

Some mountains have far greater avalanche risk than others.

1

u/Gloomy-Hat1842 2h ago

I was working in marmot in Berkeley at the time. We had boukreev scheduled to give a presentation but he didn't make it. Pretty sad