Meet Nirmal Purja, the man who is speed-climbing the world's highest peaks

Purja has had an illustrious career in mountaineering and is a multiple Guinness World Records holder for quickest ascents of Everest, Lhotse and Makalu

Nirmal Purja is attempting the impossible this year. The mountaineer, whose picture of a serpentine queue of climbers at the Everest — many of them untrained — drew attention to the dangerous commercialisation of the peak, is out to set a world record. He intends to scale 14 of the world’s highest peaks — all of them above 8,000 metres and all in the Himalayas — in seven months flat. It’s a herculean task, considering that the present record, achieved by legendary Polish alpine Jerzy Kukuczka in 1998, is seven years, 11 months and 14 days. 

Purja, 35, is confident of