Nepali mountaineer Nima Rinji Sherpa becomes youngest to climb all 14 of the world’s highest peaks

Kathmandu — An 18-year-old Nepali mountaineer on Wednesday broke the record for the youngest person to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter (26,246-foot) peaks, his team said. Nima Rinji Sherpa reached the summit of Tibet’s 26,335-foot Shisha Pangma Wednesday morning, completing his mission to stand on the world’s highest peaks.

“He reached the summit this morning. He had trained well and I was confident he would do it,” his father Tashi Sherpa told AFP.

Summiting all 14 “eight-thousanders” is considered the peak of mountaineering aspirations. Climbers cross “death zones” where there is not enough oxygen in the air to sustain human life for long periods.

Sherpa is no stranger to the mountains, hailing from a family of record-holding mountaineers who also now run Nepal’s largest mountaineering expedition company.

The age record for summitting all 14 of the world’s tallest mountains was previously held by another Nepali climber, Mingma Gyabu “David” Sherpa, who achieved it in 2019 at the age of 30.

#SherpaPower

Nima Rinji Sherpa, who already holds multiple records from his ascents of dozens of peaks, started high-altitude climbing at the age of 16, climbing Mount Manaslu in August 2022. By June this year, he had climbed his 13th mountain, Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest.  

His team said he summitted the world’s highest mountain, 29,032-foot Mount Everest, last year, within a day of reaching the top of another peak on the 8,000-meter-plus list, Mount Lhotse.

“This is a proud moment for our country,” Nima Nuru Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, told AFP Wednesday. “Nima broke all the stereotypes, and his success has given a message that nothing is impossible if you have a strong determination.”

Nepali climbers — usually ethnic Sherpas from the valleys around Everest — are considered the backbone of the climbing industry in the Himalayas. They carry the majority of the equipment and food, fixing ropes and repairing ladders for international expeditions.

Long in the shadows as supporters of foreign climbers, they are slowly being recognized in their own right.

In a statement posted Wednesday on his social media accounts, Nima Rinji Sherpa said he was dedicating his “world record to my project, #SherpaPower. This summit is not just the culmination of my personal journey, but a tribute to every Sherpa who has ever dared to dream beyond the traditional boundaries set for us.”

In 2021, a team of Nepali climbers made the first winter ascent of K2, the world’s second-highest peak — the notoriously challenging 28,251-foott “savage mountain” of Pakistan.

The world’s tallest mountains regularly claim the lives of climbers striving to reach just one of their peaks. On Tuesday, the Sherpa leader of an international trekking company said five Russian mountaineers had died after apparently slipping on the world’s seventh-highest peak, the 26,788-foot high Mount Dhaulagiri recently.