A few days before everything changed, Nirmal Purja wrote something on X that doesn’t make sense the way it does now. “Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down,” he wrote. “I don’t take any mountains for granted.” “Not one.” There was nothing cocky about it. It was more of a quiet admission of how unpredictable these places are, even for someone who has climbed all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in a little over six months.
Then, an avalanche happened on Broad Peak’s west ridge, between Camp Two and Camp Three. This happened about 6,579 meters above sea level. The time was almost 9 a.m. on a Thursday. The eleven climbers, who were from Nepal, the United States, Oman, Pakistan, and China, were going up the mountain on what is thought to be the most popular route. Within hours, their tracking devices showed a story that no one wanted to read: they were losing altitude quickly, going silent, and not being able to talk to anyone.
In the worst way, the GPS data was very clear. The tracker of American climber Mallory Geis showed a sudden drop of 543 meters. Nadhira Alharthy, an Omani climber who was the first Omani woman to reach the top of Everest, showed a drop of 1,651 meters. That kind of number doesn’t leave much room for doubt. Four bodies had been found by Friday. Three were found: Geis, Pur Bahadur Gurung of Nepal, and Alharthy. Their dead bodies were taken to a nearby hospital.
The tracker that Purja had told a slightly different story, and that difference was what everyone stuck to. His device showed the same quick drop at the beginning, which made sense since he was caught in an avalanche. But then something changed. After that, the place moved again. Her business partner, Mingma Gyabu Sherpa, who is also a member of Nepal’s parliament, was careful not to take it too literally. To put it simply, “We have no indication of his condition,” he said. “Simply that the location of the tracker had shifted.” A search team went to the site on land.
Because Pakistan is so high up, the rescue operation ran into problems that are unique to that country. Private helicopter rescue services are well-established and quick in Nepal, but it’s harder to get helicopters to help in Pakistan because they are run by the military. As it got dark on Friday, both drone and visual searches stopped. The weather wasn’t being nice. Drone footage from above had shown that seven climbers were there, but their identities and conditions could not be confirmed. The Alpine Club of Pakistan, which was in charge of coordinating the response, put out statements that were carefully worded to show how important it was without giving false hope.
To think about this without thinking about Nirmal Purja and what he stands for is next to impossible. Before he became a mountain climber, he was in the British Special Forces. He finished Project Possible in 2019, climbing all 14 eight-thousanders. This beat the old record of seven years by about six months. In 2021, a Netflix documentary told his story to people all over the world. He wasn’t just climbing mountains for fun; he was making a point about Nepalese climbers, about people who aren’t given enough credit, and about what true determination looks like. He was leading an expedition for his company, Elite Exped, on Broad Peak this season. They were trying to do something even more amazing: they wanted to be the first person to climb all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters twice without using extra oxygen.
All of this is sobering, but not in a fatalistic way. It’s sobering in the same way that high mountains have always made people honest. Purja knew there were risks. He wrote straight about them. He said that the mountain expects you to give it your all as soon as you leave base camp. He may have survived the avalanche, but it’s still not clear if he was able to self-arrest or find shelter on that frozen ridge. The search is still going on as of Friday night. Four are known to be dead. The rest haven’t been found yet; they’re still missing, stuck between the last known GPS coordinates and whatever comes next.
