A NEPALESE team who made the first successful winter ascent of K2 was lead by a man from Eastleigh. 

Nirmal "Nims" Purja MBE, a former Gurkha and UK special forces member, lead a team of Sherpas to the peak of the world's second highest mountain in the dead of winter. 

The group of mountaineers accomplished the first winter ascent of K2 - one of the world's only 14 peaks over 8,000m high never to have been climbed during the winter season. 

Among them was Nims Purja, an Eastleigh man born in Nepal, who in 2019 smashed  a world record to summit the Earth’s 14 tallest mountains.

As previously reported, he  completed the climbing challenge in six months and six days after the previous record of almost eight years - taking his place in mountaineering history.

The Nepalese group reached the Pakistani summit on Saturday, January 16. 

The team left their "high camp" at 1am to attempt to climb and braved temperatures as low as -40C.

Despite the bitter temperature, conditions were sunny with low winds. 

The crew finally reached the summit at 5pm (local time) where they assembled to sing the Nepali national anthem before descending.

In a statement from the summit Mr Purja said: “What a journey. I’m humbled to say that as a team, we have summited the magnificent K2 in extreme winter conditions.

“We set out to make the impossible possible and we are honoured to be sharing this moment, not only with the Nepalese climbing community but with communities all across the world."

K2 was first climbed 66 years ago by Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli.

Previously to this, there had been six attempts to climb K2 during the winter season, but none proved to be successful.