Broad Peak

That was, uh, Christopher Ruhl, who's with, uh, Columbia University, uh, formerly with BP.

[dramatic music] It is just over a month since an avalanche on Broad Peak Mountain on the Pakistan-China border killed 10 climbers, among them, the British Nepalese record breaker and Netflix documentary subject, Nirmal Purja, known as Nims.

While Mingma Gyalje Sherpa was the leader of the team which recovered Purja's body and also three others, and actually in doing that, he faced, uh, many difficulties escaping another avalanche himself, also overhanging columns of snow and ice that were threatening to collapse.

And our Pakistan correspondent, Caroline Davis, has been talking to him.

[wind blows] Every year, thousands travel from around the world to climb and trek in the Karakoram mountain range.

At its heart, Broad Peak, one of only 14 mountains in the world over 8,000 meters high.

On the 30th of July, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, known as Mingma G, was leading a group on nearby K2.

He'd seen his friend Nims just days earlier.

Has some great thoughts on risk management and dealing with big terrain.

And he was literally climbing Broad Peak in the Karakoram and saw Antoine Girard fly over his head, uh, not too long back, I think that was four years ago, if I have that right, maybe five years ago, and decided, "What am I doing spending all this time getting to these things when I could just do that?" So, uh, he had background in kitesurfing and had done a lot of kiting and a lot of time under wing.

So, uh, it was a kind of a natural progression to flying, which is something he'd been fascinated with but just hadn't done.

And now he's gaming for the X-Alps.

Where I wanna start, Thomas, is this great quote you had in the XCMag article.

You know, you thought you were hallucinating.

So you're standing on top of Broad Peak or somewhere near the summit, 8,000 meters.

You know, Broad Peak's got a lot of attention in paragliding circles lately 'cause it's the, it's the go-to from the Cream of the Valley and Antoine Girard, and they've been doing really cool stuff out there.

It's like right now, Nims died from Nims expedition, the elite expedition, yeah? Yeah.

He, I just got told that he got lost in Broad Peak, Pakistan, when he was doing, because there was a cruise at Avalanche.

Yeah.

So...

It's really commendable.

I mean, it's It's so much more complicated than rescuing climbers from Everest even or those 10 climbers who died in the avalanche on Broad Peak.

This is by an order of magnitude, orders of magnitude more difficult and unrewarding probably.

Also, John, I want to bring up what Ben was talking about.

It has a habit of catching people, good people, well-prepared people.

Ten guys died on Broad Peak.

three four weeks ago including one of the most you know accomplished mountaineers of the last ten years he didn't go out thinking his number was up he went out feeling as invincible as he ever did and he's not coming home that is that's fine you know he got caught in an avalanche the five that perished on Everest this year.

One guy had a heart attack on the trail into Everest, on the trail itself.

Yeah, and we'll be waiting, like, for the scientific reports coming in, but I do know, like, you know, of a number of glaciers.

Like, I'm just back from Pakistan as well, like, you know, and when I was in Pakistan, like, you would have heard there last week, like, where Nim's Day, like, one of the most famous mountaineers, we were just under Broad Peak.

I was heading to K2 Base Camp and the face of that gave away like on a slab avalanche but there was 10 climbers on it as we passed were wiped away as well and then there was big rock falls so what's happening is the ice even between the rock like is melting and then it's swelling and then you have some rock fall like it just burst open like an explosion and it's the same on the glaciers so yeah i think that the monitoring systems uh In the main trekking areas, there is warning systems there.

But, like, we've been knowing this for years.

And he was like, so there were two of them.

There was Gerard MacDonald and Rolf Bay.

But like my initial partner, Magic Barbica, that's the reason why we were at Broad Peak Base Camp.

He died on Broad Peak a number of years ago there.

So yeah, I'll keep doing, and then hopefully that will dictate what my legacy is.

On July 30th, 2026, Nirmal "Nims" Dai Purja passed away on Pakistan's Broad Peak Mountain.

He was 43 years old.

Along with nine other climbers, Nims Dai and the entire climbing team tragically lost their lives in an avalanche.