Fastest 14 Eight-Thousanders: Speed Records & Completer List

The eight-thousanders are the world's 14 mountains that rise above 8,000 metres (26,247 feet). Eight of them stand wholly or partly in Nepal, including Mount Everest (Sagarmatha, 8,849 m), Kanchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Annapurna I. The remaining peaks lie in Pakistan (K2, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak) and Tibet (Shishapangma). Climbing all 14 is regarded as the ultimate high-altitude challenge in mountaineering.

Interest in who has climbed all 14, and how fast, surged after Nirmal 'Nims' Purja's 2019 project and the Netflix film '14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible' (2021), then again with the Kristin Harila and Tenjen Sherpa record in 2023. For Nepal, the story is not only about foreign stars: Sherpa guides and Nepali climbers hold many of the sport's headline records, and much of the world's high-altitude logistics runs through Kathmandu-based expedition companies.

Records in this field come in distinct categories that are easy to confuse. The two biggest divides are whether a climber used supplemental (bottled) oxygen and whether every claimed summit was the true, highest point. This page separates oxygen-assisted speed records from oxygen-free records, and flags where verification of 'true summits' is still debated.

The 'fastest 14 eight-thousanders' record measures the elapsed time from a climber's first of the 14 summits to the last. The modern speed era was opened by South Korea's Kim Chang-ho, who completed all 14 without supplemental oxygen in about 7 years and 310 days, from Nanga Parbat (14 July 2005) to Everest (20 May 2013). That stood as the benchmark for the shortest completion of the full set.

The record was then shattered by Nirmal 'Nims' Purja of Nepal (later a British citizen) during his 'Project Possible' in 2019. Purja summited all 14 in 6 months and 6 days, from Annapurna I on 23 April 2019 to Shishapangma on 29 October 2019, using supplemental oxygen. This cut the previous fastest time from years to months and made the 14x8000 speed project a mainstream story.

On 27 July 2023, Norway's Kristin Harila and Nepal's Tenjen (Tenjin) Lama Sherpa halved that mark, finishing all 14 in 92 days (about three months and one day), from Shishapangma on 26 April 2023 to K2 on 27 July 2023, with supplemental oxygen. As of 2026 this 92-day mark is the fastest verified completion of all 14 eight-thousanders. Tragically, Tenjen Lama Sherpa was killed in an avalanche on Shishapangma on 7 October 2023, only weeks after the record.

The question 'who climbed all 14 8000ers' first has a clear answer: Italy's Reinhold Messner became the first person ever to summit all 14 eight-thousanders on 16 October 1986, when he topped out on Lhotse and Makalu to complete the set. Messner did it without supplemental oxygen, so he was simultaneously the first completer overall and the first to do so oxygen-free.

Poland's Jerzy Kukuczka became the second person to climb all 14, completing his set in 1987, less than a year after Messner and in far less total elapsed time, using new routes and winter ascents on most peaks. In the 1980s the press framed Messner and Kukuczka as being in a 'race', though both men disliked the label. These two pioneers established the challenge that every later completer has measured themselves against.

For decades Guinness World Records recognised Messner as the first to climb all 14 without oxygen. In September 2023 there was controversy after Guinness briefly reattributed the 'first without oxygen' listing to American climber Ed Viesturs over questions about whether Messner reached the exact true summit of Annapurna I in 1985. Viesturs himself publicly insisted Messner should remain recognised as the first, and Guinness's public listing has continued to credit Messner. Given the dispute, this page treats Messner as the widely accepted first oxygen-free completer while noting the verification debate.

Any honest 14x8000 leaderboard must separate ascents made with supplemental oxygen from those made without it. Climbing above roughly 8,000 m — the 'death zone' — is dramatically harder without bottled oxygen, so the two categories are not comparable. The fastest overall completions (Purja's 6 months 6 days and Harila and Tenjen's 92 days) were achieved with oxygen and with strong Sherpa support and helicopter transfers between base camps.

The fastest oxygen-free completion of all 14 remains Kim Chang-ho's roughly 7-year, 310-day project, because the later speed records used bottled oxygen. Reinhold Messner and Poland's Jerzy Kukuczka (Kukuczka used oxygen only on Everest) headline the oxygen-free pioneers, later joined by Switzerland's Erhard Loretan and others. When comparing climbers, always check three things: whether oxygen was used, whether the true summit was reached, and over what time span.

Nims Purja later added an oxygen-free dimension to his record collection: he completed all 14 peaks again without supplemental oxygen, finishing that separate no-oxygen set in 2024 and setting a mark for the fastest oxygen-free completion of all 14 in the modern era. This is a different achievement from his 2019 oxygen-assisted speed record and is counted separately.

The youngest person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders is Nima Rinji Sherpa of Nepal, who completed the set on 9 October 2024 at age 18 by summiting Shishapangma in Tibet, using supplemental oxygen. He broke the previous youngest-completer mark held by fellow Nepali Mingma Gyabu 'David' Sherpa, who finished all 14 in October 2019 at age 30. Nima Rinji's feat was widely celebrated in Nepal as a symbol of a new generation of Nepali mountaineers claiming records in their own name.

On the women's side, Spain's Edurne Pasaban is generally recognised as the first woman to summit all 14 eight-thousanders, completing the set on 17 May 2010. Austria's Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner became the first woman to climb all 14 without supplemental oxygen in August 2011. Kristin Harila's 92-day sprint in 2023 stands as the fastest completion by anyone, male or female, in the oxygen-assisted category.

Nepali climbers dominate the guiding and record-setting side of the challenge. Sanu Sherpa, from Sankhuwasabha, became the first person in history to climb all 14 eight-thousanders twice, completing his second full round on 21 July 2022 on Gasherbrum II. Tenjen Lama Sherpa co-holds the fastest-ever record with Harila, and Sherpa teams provide the rope-fixing, load-carrying and logistics behind almost every modern 14x8000 project.

There is no single official register of everyone who has climbed all 14, and published totals vary. Strict verification authorities such as the Himalayan Database and researcher Eberhard Jurgalski's 8000ers.com apply demanding 'true summit' standards, so their confirmed-completer count (in the mid-40s) is lower than looser tallies that reach 60 or more. The gap comes mainly from disputed high points on Annapurna I, Manaslu and Shishapangma, where some climbers historically stopped short of the exact top.

For speed and 'firsts', the authorities most often cited are Guinness World Records, the Himalayan Database, expedition operators, and mountaineering outlets such as ExplorersWeb. Because claims can take months to verify, a headline record is sometimes provisional until summit photos, GPS tracks and independent analysis are reviewed. This is why some records — including the Messner oxygen-free listing — have been contested years after the fact.

For readers in Nepal, the practical takeaway is that the 14x8000 leaderboard is a living record. New completers are added most seasons, youngest and fastest marks are periodically broken, and databases may disagree on exact totals. The durable facts are the milestone dates and names in this article; the raw 'how many people have done it' number should always be read as an estimate tied to a particular database and year.