![]() ![]() He was one of those uniformed boarding-school boys walking arm-in-arm in the road, dressed in a striped tie and a blue cardigan. Though he is now in possession of a British passport, Nims was once a barefoot ethnic Magar kid, running in the sweltering streets of Chitwan, near the Indian border. Only this time, instead of politely supporting his Edmund Hillary, he takes the credit and razzes the best foreign climbers for drafting behind him and his Sherpa crew. He is the second coming of Tenzing Norgay. Nimsdai is both the flagship mountaineering store above the Apple computer retailer in that square, and the diminutive Nepali call sign of the man whose name is on every Himalayan climber’s lips: Nirmal Purja a.k.a. Those same seven letters appeared above the glass-and-steel shopping pavilion annexed to the five-star Marriott that sprang up in the brief interlude between the 2015 earthquake, which killed nearly 9,000 Nepalis, and the pandemic, which took an additional 12,000. In sleek black sans serif on the hood of the custom white Land Rover that fetched me from Tribhuvan airport: Nimsdai. A new and powerful force had taken hold here: Nimsdai. Indeed, his name was everywhere in Kathmandu, like a flickering signal resolving from the noise of interstellar static. “I’m the fucking face of these people, bro,” he said. He nodded to the Sherpa guys still dancing. He believes he’s carrying more than their safety on his back. No one in the world has got that track record. Probably fitter and with a better mental attitude. Brought everybody back home exactly the same way they left. “Thirty-two 8,000-meter expeditions, my brother,” he boasted. The incident had prompted Nims to reflect on his own safety record. The guides had gotten the Frenchman off the mountain, but he expired before they could reach a waiting helicopter. Last September, he organized the recovery of American ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson’s body after she died falling from the summit of Manaslu, the world’s eighth-tallest peak.īut this time, there was nothing he could do. His photo of a traffic jam of hundreds of climbers queuing near Everest’s summit in 2019 became an international news story, as were his many rescues of other climbers that same season. Nims typically has a knack for being near the center of the action. “If only they had told my team, ‘Could you give us a hand?’ ” Nims lamented, referring to the staff of 46 able-bodied men in camp. Earlier in the day he’d been irritated that a French climber had died during his descent, and that his outfitter hadn’t called Nims to ask for help. Nims danced for a half-hour, dropping into thigh-crushing Cossack leg kicks at one point, and then settled into a chair with a mug. “But next day if you can’t operate, that’s your fuckup.” “I don’t care what you do,” Nims later said of his policy on both clients and employees getting turnt. Green, the architect, leaned over and assured me, “This is every night.” A fifth of rum appeared and Nims filled everyone’s cups. After dinner, the Sherpas cranked up a local Nepali DJ named Badal and the scene phase-changed into a full-blown dance party. ![]()
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