Fastest ascent of Mount Everest, Lhotse and Makalu, in 48 hours[7][8][9] Nirmal Purja (known as Nims or Nimsdai[14]) MBE (Nepali: निर्मल पुर्जा; born 25 July 1983[1]) is a Nepal-born naturalised British[4] mountaineer.

[1][15] Purja is notable for having climbed all 14 eight-thousanders (peaks above 8,000 metres or 26,000 feet) in a time of six months and six days with the aid of bottled oxygen between April and October 2019.

[17][18][19] Nirmal ("Nims") Purja was born in July 1983 in Dana, a small village in Nepal's Myagdi District[20] near Dhaulagiri, at 1,600 m above sea level.

[21] In 2018, he passed on a surprise invitation to join the Special Air Services (SAS) unit, and resigned from the SBS as a Lance Corporal,[23] in order to focus full-time on his high-altitude mountaineering career and projects.

[21] At the time, Purja had become an important contributor to his family while serving in the military,[24] and was passing up his army pension (which he called "a life-changing" amount of money).

[30] On 9 June 2018, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II[23] for his outstanding work in high altitude mountaineering.

On 1 October 2019, Chinese authorities agreed to grant Purja and his team a special permit to scale Shishapangma (8027 m, Tibet, China) in the autumn season, at the request of the Nepali government.

In May 2022, Purja set a new speed record for ascending Kangchenjunga, Mount Everest, and Lhotse consecutively without oxygen, with a time of 8 days 23 hours, and 10 minutes.

[50] Research published in 2022 could only verify three climbers, including Purja, (the other two being Ed Viesturs and Veikka Gustafsson), to have stood on the true geographical summit of all 14 eight-thousanders.

Professional mountaineer and former Miss Finland Lotta Hintsa says Purja sexually assaulted her in a hotel suite in Kathmandu, Nepal, in March 2023.

Both Leonardo's and Hintsa's accounts were corroborated by text messages, time-stamped photos, and other evidence examined by the reporters who wrote a New York Times article detailing the allegations.

According to the article, Purja refused requests for an interview, and gave a written statement through his lawyer, Philip M. Kelly, denying the allegations and calling them "false and defamatory.