Summaries

Synopsis

The documentary is about Project Possible, a plan by British-Nepali high altitude climber Nirmal Purja to climb all of the world's 14 highest peaks (Phase 1 (Nepal): Annapurna (8091 m), Dhaulagiri (8167 m), Kanchenjunga (8586 m), Everest (8848 m), Makalu (8485 m), Lhotse (8516 m), Phase 2 (Pakistan): Nanga Parbat (8125 m), Gasherbrum I (8080 m), Gasherbrum II (8034 m), Broad Peak (8051 m), K2 (8611 m), Phase 3 (Nepal+Tibet): Manaslu (8163 m), Cho Oyu (8201 m), ShishaPangma (8027 m)) with an altitude greater than 8000m (called Eight-Thousanders) inside 7 months (i.e. from late spring to late summer, before the winter season begins). The actual climbing took 6 months and 6 days between April 2019 to October 2019. The first person to climb the 14 Eight-Thousanders was Italian climber Reinhold Messner who took 16 years between 1970 and 1986 and completed the feat without the use of supplementary oxygen. By 2013, the feat had been achieved in 7 years and 310 days by South Korean climber Kim Chang, who also did not use supplementary oxygen. Purja decided to use oxygen above 7,500m for Project Possible based on prior experiences when not using oxygen on past Eight-Thousander climbs would have stopped him from saving the lives of stricken climbers (something he ended up doing several times during the project). In 2021, when leading a larger all-Nepali team to complete the first winter ascent of K2, Purja did not use oxygen.

Messner appears several times in the film talking about Eight-Thousanders and what Purja was trying to do; Purja met Messner after suffering a bad fall on Nanga Parbat but Messner gave him encouragement to keep going, with Purja recounting: "He looked into my eyes and said, 'You can do it'. He told me to my face, and he hadn't even seen my climb. When he did the 8000-ers, the whole mountaineering community was against him, but he proved the concept. He did it when the world couldn't see his vision".

Nirmal was a Gurkha, who then served with the UK special forces. While in UK he got married to Suchi and then started training for the 14 peaks climb in 2008. In 2011 he was almost shot to death by a sniper, during a military mission. He never set foot on a mountain before 2012. But fell in love with the physical and mental intensity required. Nirmal quit the army even though his family was dependent on his income. He had 6 yrs to go, before he would secure his pension, but Nirmal was adamant about his passion. Nirmal needed to raise a huge amount to fund the expedition, but the money was forthcoming from donors. Nirmal re-mortgages his house to get the funds needed.

The documentary begins in April 2019, with Purja (& his team Mingma David, Geljen, Lakpa Dendi, Gesman) attempting Annapurna I, statistically, the most dangerous Eight-Thousander. Purja joins with Canadian climber Don Bowie who has failed several times on the Annapurna. However, Purja encourages Bowie to come with his team and they are successful Summiting on 23 April, with Bowie saying, "This guy believed they were going to do it, and they pushed thru". The following day, Purja returns up the mountain to rescue a stricken climber (later identified as Malaysian climber Wui Kin Chin) which is successful (although Chin would die days later in Singapore). The rescue meant Purja lost his "weather window" for Dhaulagiri, which his team summits in bad weather on 12 May. Purja then summits Kanchenjunga on 15 May in a single 22-hour push passing all camps. While descending from the summit, at 8,450m and still in the death zone (above 8000 m), Purja and his team encounter two stricken Indian climbers (later identified as Kuntal Karar and Biplab Baidya); despite giving them all their oxygen and waiting for 12-hours for help which never arrives, one dies in Purja's arms, while the other succumbs at camp 4 - Purja suffers HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema, which makes one lose control of their motor functions) helping a third lost climber.

Behind schedule and questioning himself after the deaths on Annapurna and Kanchenjunga, Purja summits the three neighboring Eight-Thousanders of Everest on 22 May, Lhotse on 22nd May, and Makalu on 24 May, in a record 48-hour push, taking a photograph of a large queue that had formed at the Hillary Step on Everest, which went viral and was re-printed on the front of the New York Times. The film breaks back to the period before the climbing started, with interviews from Purja's wife and brothers about his early life and career in the Gurkas and the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), and the sacrifices and financial risks that Purja took to create Project Possible. We also learn that his mother is unwell, and of a near-death experience from a sniper bullet to the face while on duty with the SBS.

Purja then moves to the Karakoram Eight-Thousanders Summiting Nanga Parbat on 3 July but taking a 100m fall on while descending that was only arrested when he managed to grab hold of a random fixed rope that had been left behind. Purja tells the camera: "I always say to myself, I'm not going to die today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today". He then summits Gasherbrum I on 15 July and Gasherbrum II 18 July. When Purja arrives at K2 (also one of most dangerous Eight-Thousanders), spirits at Base Camp are very low, and high levels of avalanches meant that most teams are preparing to abandon their climbs. Purja's team breaks out some bottles and has a party to lift spirits. The next day, Purja and his team begin climbing K2 and lay down fixed ropes in the dangerous Bottleneck section of the climb at 1 am (when the snow is hardest and at its most stable). Purja summits K2 on 24 July, and over the next two days, 24 other climbers use the fixed ropes laid down by his team to summit the mountain. Two days later, Purja summits Broad Peak on 26 July, thus completing a 23-day push to climb the 5 Eight-Thousanders in the Karakoram.

Purja rushes back to Kathmandu to be with his mother who has suffered a heart attack. He then returns to summit Cho Oyu on 23 September, and Manaslu on 27 September. He then spends a few weeks lobbying Nepali politicians to help him secure a permit from the Chinese to climb Shishapangma in Tibet, which he successfully summits on 29 October 2019. Purja calls his now dying mother from the summit "we did it". Later we seek Purja reunited with his mother and the world's media to celebrate the conclusion of his Project Possible.