Climbing’s High-flying Star Hits the Ground

Sandeep Sen for the Himalayan:

Lawmaker Rajendra Bajgain has urged the government to ban prominent climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja from entering Nepal. This call comes in the wake of a New York Times article alleging sexual assault by Purja. In the article, Finnish climber Lotta Hintsa and American physician Dr. April Leonardo accuse Purja of sexual misconduct during their expeditions with him.

Just as the Everest season comes to a close for the year this story drops and it’s somewhat unsurprising and still shocking at the same time. When I watched his film ’14 Peaks’ on Netflix I loved it, but I also felt like something was off all of it. I chalked it up as a cultural misunderstanding on my part. A big part of the story in the film was him claiming that his achievement would’ve made a much bigger impact in the mountaineering world if he was a Westerner, and us such I felt like he was overcompensating for that. Turns out, the reason why folks didn’t really gel with him is because he actually is a giant asshole.