The peaks, all within the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges, were not selected because of their infamous technical challenges, nor because of their close proximity, but rather for the one thing they have in common: they are the only summits higher than 8,000m, in the notorious ‘death zone’ where human life cannot exist.

Only 40 climbers have achieved the feat of ascending all 14, 8,000m peaks. The previous world record for one individual to climb them consecutively stood at 7 years 11 months and 14 days held by Jerzy Kukuczka in 1987, and South Korean Kim Chang-ho who beat Kukuczka’s record in 2013 by just 1 month and 8 days. Nims’ vision was to re-write the history books in a monumental manner, this naturally attracted it’s sceptics and to many, the project seemed impossible, despite the expedition title ‘Project Possible’. Securing the financial partners was clearly going to be an additional mountain to climb.