A Trailblazing Teen

Nima Rinji is showing the world the powerful spirit of the Sherpa people as he climbs the tallest mountains on Earth.

A family member carries Nima Rinji Sherpa after the 18-year-old became the youngest person to climb all 14 of the world’s highest peaks.

Nima Rinji Sherpa has already climbed his way to the top of the record books and is going for more. Nima is the youngest person to have climbed the world’s 14 tallest peaks, completing the feat by the age of 18. As a member of the Himalayan Sherpa ethnic group, Nima is also working to break stereotypes about what mountaineering stars look like on the global stage.

Nima began his record-breaking journey in 2022 when he climbed Nepal’s Manaslu Mountain, which reaches 26,781 feet (8,163 meters) in elevation. Within two years, he had summited the remaining “eight-thousanders”—the peaks with an altitude above 8,000 meters (26,000 feet). These peaks are in the “death zone” because they’re so high that the human body will start to shut down due to the lack of oxygen.

These images show Nima Rinji Sherpa and some of the mountains he has climbed.

Nima celebrated each success on social media with the hashtag #SherpaPower. The Sherpas are a mountain-dwelling ethnic group that lives in Nepal, India, and the region of China called Tibet. Because of their connection to high-altitude living, many Sherpas work in the mountaineering industry as climbing guides. As a result, there’s a common misconception that the word Sherpa refers to someone who helps mountaineering stars. This misunderstanding has led to the false belief that Sherpa people are merely support staff, even though they climb alongside their clients.

Nima is among those helping to change these stereotypes. Increasingly, Sherpas are breaking climbing records and running their own guiding businesses. Nima says his dream is to train more young Nepalis to be adventure heroes, while also honoring past Sherpa climbers who never received recognition.

“The generation before us, they are the pioneers, [and] we’re climbing the route that they established,” said Nima in an interview with CNN. “But I’m just so happy that I’m living in this moment right now, [because] so much is happening in the world of mountaineering. And as a younger generation, we’ll always try to do something better.”

NEWS EXTRA

Olympic Highlights!

Gold medalist Lucas Pinheiro Braathen of Brazil (center) celebrates after winning the men’s giant slalom in Alpine skiing.

The action was nearly nonstop at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, which closed on February 22. We’ve put together a few highlights!

Snowboarder Gaon Choi of South Korea feared her Olympic dreams were over after falling on the first run of the women’s half-pipe. “I thought my knee was broken,” she later told the Associated Press. But the 17-year-old was able to complete her next two runs…and win the gold medal, the first in the sport for South Korea. Choi defeated American Chloe Kim, who took home the silver medal.
Lucas Pinheiro Braathen of Brazil took home the gold in the Alpine skiing giant slalom, becoming the first South American athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics. Pinheiro Braathen skied faster than Switzerland’s Marco Oldermatt, who had been favored to win. Federica Brignone of Italy won the women’s giant slalom. Sara Hector of Sweden and Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway shared the silver medal after clocking the exact same time in the first two runs of the event. Hector later said the chances of this happening were one in a million!
Figure skater Alysa Liu of the United States captured the gold medal in women’s singles, the first American woman to do so since 2002. Liu made almost no mistakes in her free skate (long program). Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan won the gold in men’s singles after landing five quadruple jumps (a jump with four rotations in the air) in his free skate, or long program. American Ilia Malinin, who had been leading after the short program (first round), ended up in 8th place.
The gold medal Olympic hockey game is often a battle between Canada and the United States. This time, the United States won both the men’s and women’s matches. Each one ended with a final score of 2-1 in overtime. This was the first hockey gold for the U.S. men since 1980.
The Olympics can turn athletes into celebrities. But the biggest star of this year’s Games may be a 2-year-old dog named Nazgul. On February 18, Nazgul escaped from his family’s home and ran onto a nearby Olympic cross-country skiing course during a race. One skier said Nazgul distracted her, causing her to move more slowly than usual. Luckily, the race was just a qualifier, meaning there was no medal at stake. Nazgul is now back home with his family.

Did You Know?

The tallest mountain and the highest mountain are not the same! The tallest mountain on Earth is Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which is 33,500 feet (10,210 meters) tall from its base to its peak. It doesn’t seem so tall because much of the mountain is hidden in the ocean.

On Top of the World

Jamling Tenzing Norgay, http://www.tenzing-norgay-trekking.de (CC BY 3.0)

Edmund Hillary (left) and Tenzing Norgay pose for a photo after completing the first successful ascent of Mount Everest.

Let’s play a little trivia game: What is the highest mountain on Earth? That is easy—it’s Mount Everest in Nepal! Who were the first people to reach its summit? If you said Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Edmund Hillary, then you win! This climbing pair became the first people to set foot on the world’s highest point on May 29, 1953.

Both Hillary and Tenzing grew up climbing mountains on opposite sides of the globe, but the drive to conquer Everest caused their paths to converge. Hillary was a mountain climber from New Zealand, and Tenzing was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa who had been working on the slopes of Everest since he was a teenager.

In this 1953 photo, Edmund Hillary (left) and Tenzing Norgay stand on the southeast ridge of Mount Everest.

Until the 1953 expedition, many had tried and failed to reach Everest’s peak. Some had even died in the attempt. For the 1953 trek, hundreds of local porters and 20 guides, including head guide Tenzing, supported just 10 foreign mountain climbers including Hillary. The expedition battled through many equipment challenges and harsh conditions to camp within range of the summit. Another pair in the group, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, nearly made it to the peak on May 26, but had to turn back due to exhaustion.

The expedition team decided Hillary and Tenzing should be the next pair to attempt the summit. Early on May 29 the two set out, climbing over snow and ice for hours before achieving the seemingly impossible. Tenzing and Hillary stood at the top of the world for only 15 minutes before going back to camp. Today, that brief moment is marked in history forever.

Point Me to the North Pole!

Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington D.C. (LC-USZC4-7503)

This photo of Matthew Henson was taken around 1910.

It can be hard to know if someone is among the first to reach a remote spot, particularly if no one is sure where that spot is! African American explorer Matthew Henson was one of the first people to reach the North Pole…or was he?

Read more about the success and uncertainty of Henson’s Arctic expedition at Britannica!

WORD OF THE WEEK

dauntless

PART OF SPEECH:

adjective

Definition:

: very brave

Definitions provided by

Sudoku

How many words can you make with these letters? All words must use the center letter.

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