Mountain of Grief: The Rescue Mission That Changed Everything

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa stood on a frozen slope in Pakistan's Karakoram range, moving toward two bodies he already knew were gone. The fluorescent down suits cut bright against the white snow. He had climbed the world's highest mountains with both of them—Nirmal Purja and Kili Pemba Sherpa—under clear skies and through blizzards. An avalanche had swept across Broad Peak in July, and the drone footage had been unambiguous. No one could have survived. Yet as he drew closer, something in him still held onto the possibility that they were waiting for rescue. "I told them: 'It's ok. You don't have to be here in the cold anymore,'" he would later tell the BBC in Islamabad, his voice low.

Mingma G and Nirmal Purja had met five years earlier in Pakistan, where they were part of the first team to summit K2 during winter. Mingma G had built his reputation over two decades as a mountain guide from the Sherpa community. Nirmal—known as Nims—was a former Gurkha and British Special Forces soldier who had become one of the world's most recognizable mountaineers, famous for climbing the fourteen highest peaks in just over six months, a feat documented in a Netflix film. Their paths had diverged in style and approach. Where Mingma G worked quietly as a guide, Nims cultivated a public profile, building a social media following and marketing his expeditions. Some critics said he prioritized records over substance. In 2024, the New York Times published sexual misconduct allegations against him, which Purja denied through his lawyer as "false and defamatory," and which he again denied in a subsequent interview. When Mingma G first encountered Nims, he found him arrogant. But that judgment shifted when they decided to climb K2 together and share the record. "Very kind-hearted, one of the most beautiful human beings I've met," Mingma G would later say.

On July 30th, the weather was perfect—sunshine, no wind. Mingma G was leading a team up K2, about five miles away from where Nims's group had joined others to form a larger expedition of ten climbers ascending Broad Peak. At 8:30 in the morning, Mingma G spoke by radio with Kili Pemba Sherpa, a childhood friend and expert climber in Nims's group. Snow conditions looked favorable. They agreed to check in again when both teams reached the next camp. Two trekkers watching from below saw the climbers as small silhouettes moving up the slope and took photographs. Then, less than an hour later, came what one trekker described as a "thundercrack"—a massive avalanche starting from the summit and descending both sides of the mountain. The silhouettes vanished. The trekkers' guide radioed base camp with the news. The Alpine Club of Pakistan would later determine that an ice-slab collapse, not recent snowfall, had triggered the disaster.

When Mingma G reached the next camp on K2, his team had heard nothing from the Broad Peak climbers. Climbers often turned off radios to conserve batteries, so there was no immediate alarm. But something felt wrong. Wang Zhong, a close friend and client, normally sent a message through his Garmin satellite tracker when he reached a new camp. No message came. At base camp, Pakistani mountain guide Waqar Ali was also trying to reach the group without success. He assumed they were sleeping before a final push to the summit. By 3 p.m., no contact had been made. At 7,300 meters on K2, where communication was already difficult, Mingma G's team began calling officials, families, and contacts in Kathmandu. Around 8 p.m., they learned that altitude readings from the Broad Peak climbers' trackers had plummeted—one had dropped approximately 1,600 meters. It was too late and too dark to climb or send a drone. Mingma G waited for sunrise, holding onto hope. "Especially for Kilu and Nims, who were experienced and physically strong," he would say.

At dawn, a drone was sent up. The operator radioed back: bodies on the mountain. No survivors. "I was totally blank," Mingma G recalled. He could not yet accept that he had lost so many close friends at once. "Maybe still I had a feeling they might all be alive and wanted somebody to help them get down. That was just something I had in my heart and mind." Later that day, he abandoned his K2 expedition. Down at Broad Peak's base, Waqar Ali wept as he arrived with another climber to begin the grim work of recovery. They retrieved the bodies of Nadhira Al Harthy, the first Omani woman to climb Everest, and Pur Bahadur Gurung, a Nepalese climber who had summited twelve of the world's fourteen highest peaks. But more bodies remained on the mountain, and Mingma G was determined to bring his friends home.

When he called Nims's wife and brother-in-law with the news, they struggled to believe it. Kilu's wife said little, but her message was clear: "Don't leave your brother on the mountain." Organizing the recovery proved complicated. The climbers who had been with Mingma G on K2 were unsettled and under pressure from families to leave. Logistically, Mingma G believed a helicopter with a long-line rope could retrieve the bodies—"In Nepal it would have taken like two minutes," he said—but he was told this was not possible. The Pakistani army, which would have provided helicopters, did not respond to the BBC's questions. The Alpine Club of Pakistan confirmed that a request made on August 1st was approved, but poor weather prevented the operation for days. There was only one option left: a foot-based recovery mission on an unstable slope.

On August 1st, Mingma G's rescue team set out to find four bodies they had seen in drone footage—Nims, Kilu, Wang Zhong, and fellow climber Nima Sherpa. They would also discover Gyaljen Sherpa nearby. The slope was treacherous. Falling rocks and further avalanches were constant threats. A larger team could cause more casualties; a smaller team would struggle with the weight. As the rescue team began lowering the bodies on ropes, another avalanche struck. The torrent of snow sent one body to the bottom of the slope. Three others, including Nims, ended up in a far more dangerous position—in the center of the slope with massive pillars of glacial ice balanced precariously on either side. If either pillar collapsed while the team worked, the ice tower could sweep them away. Team members began leaving. Nine became six, then four. Mingma G hung back, monitoring by drone and directing the three remaining climbers. The operation took five to six hours. They finally brought the bodies down.

When Mingma G first saw his friends on the mountain, the image would haunt him. Nims and Kilu had covered their faces with their jackets—Mingma G believed they had seen the avalanche coming and prepared for impact. They were attached to the same rope, their legs wrapped in it. Mingma G thinks they may have struck each other repeatedly as they fell nearly 500 meters. "If they were not on the rope, maybe there was a possibility that Nims and Kilu might have survived," he said. The bodies were brought down the slope, flown by helicopter to the nearby city of Skardu, then to Islamabad, and finally home to their families. Pakistani mountaineer Sohail Sakhi's body was found days later, as was American climber Mallory Geis. The body of Nepalese climber Nawang Thindu Sherpa remains on the mountain. Nims's family released a statement expressing deep gratitude to "the extraordinary team led by our brother, Mingma G, who worked in incredibly challenging conditions to bring Nimsdai home." But the recovery operation has stayed with Mingma G in ways no other mission has. As he looks back with deep sorrow, he feels the end of his climbing career may be approaching. Memories of the three of them singing together as they marched toward K2's summit years ago will always remain. Yet he is uncertain whether those memories will help him keep climbing or convince him to stop.