On May 17, B.Nergui stood at the top of the world, 8,848 meters above sea level, where the air is thin and the view is infinite. In doing so, he joined a rare and storied lineage, becoming the 18th Mongolian climber to conquer the summit of Mount Everest. In this interview, he tells his story.  

You have now made history as the 18th Mongolian to stand on the summit of Everest. How long did it take to get there, from the very first step of training to that moment on top of the world?

I have been practicing mountaineering quite intensively for the last two or three years. Through the professional Jargalant club, which trains climbers for high-altitude peaks, I climbed many beautiful mountains across Mongolia. Starting from Bogd Mountain, I went on to Asralt Mountain, then the highest peak of the Khentii Range, and later the highest peak of the Khangai Range. Moving further west, I took on the great summits of the Altai, namely Sutai, Tsambagarav and Altai Tavan Bogd. All of it was preparation for this. I am deeply grateful to have achieved my goal, and I owe much of that to the guidance and support of experienced climbers who have dedicated many years to this sport. I traveled to Nepal independently through a Nepali private company called 8K Expeditions, and joined an international team there. Our group of around 10 climbers from the USA, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, Nepal and Mongolia were among the first to summit Everest this season, and every single one of us reached the top. I was the first in our group to head home after the summit, as I had a narrow window to return to Mongolia. The last members of our team completed their journey on May 29. 

You came to serious mountaineering relatively later in life. At what point did the thought first cross your mind that Everest was within reach? 

Mountaineering is a sport anyone can take up at any age, and I truly believe that. But among all the climbers making their way to the summit of Everest this season, I was the oldest. For someone who has spent the better part of his life deep in government service, personal responsibilities and civic work, it was undeniably a late start. Still, the mountains were never really far from me. As a child, my family would often make the trip out to the mountain north of Nalaikh, a modest but beautiful peak sitting at around 1,400 meters above sea level. It was not serious climbing, but it planted something. Sport and an active, healthy lifestyle have always been values our family held close, and I carried that with me into adulthood. When I began training seriously alongside climbers who had already stood on peaks at 6,000, 7,000 and 8,000 meters, something shifted. Watching them, learning from them, pushing myself alongside them, a quiet thought took hold: why not go all the way to the top? From that point, the ambition was there. What remained was the timing. Slowly, the pieces fell into place. Work obligations, personal life, training intensity and opportunity all converged at the right moment. I have come to believe that everything in life has its own time, and for me, this was mine.

The climb to Everest is, by any measure, a confrontation with mortality at every step. What was the greatest challenge you faced along the way?

We landed in Kathmandu on April 3. From there, we made our way to Lukla, a small village perched at 2,700 meters above sea level, and began the long trek to Base Camp at 5,300 meters. That walk alone takes seven to eight days. We spent roughly a month at Base Camp, using the time to climb surrounding peaks, train on ice, and gradually acclimatize to the low-oxygen environment. By May 6, we had pushed up to Camp Two. One of the defining challenges of this season was the Khumbu Icefall. The glacier was unusually active, and the risk of ice collapse from above was serious enough that the route to the summit was opened considerably later than normal. The Nepalese Government had dispatched professional teams to fix ropes and set harnesses along ice walls rising 60 to 70 meters, and that work was only completed on May 10. Above 8,000 meters lies what climbers call the death zone, where every single step carries real risk. But if I am honest, the month of preparation leading up to that point was its own kind of suffering. The hardest thing is not the cold or the altitude itself. It is the oxygen, or rather, the absence of it. At home, we rest and recover through simple things: a good meal, a full night of sleep, clean water. Up there, none of that is available to you in any meaningful way. Sleep is shallow and broken. Food holds no appeal. Your body simply refuses to cooperate. However, the moment you allow yourself even a small additional flow of oxygen beyond your allotted amount, everything changes. The fog lifts. Your limbs respond. It is almost startling, like a surge of energy coursing through you all at once. But the higher you climb, dehydration sets in relentlessly, and your movements slow whether you want them to or not. Your legs stiffen. Your arms feel heavy. At a certain point, there is no room in your mind for complex thought. The only thing that exists is your breath, the next step, and the boots of the Sherpa ahead of you. You follow. You breathe. You move. The Sherpas themselves are remarkable. Accustomed to the environment from a lifetime at altitude, they ascend and descend carrying only one or two oxygen cylinders. For the rest of us, managing three cylinders, the standard allocation, and rationing them carefully across the climb was a challenge in itself.

For someone who grew up roaming the open steppes of Mongolia, how did it feel to finally stand on the roof of the world?

When we arrived at Camp 4 on the evening of May 16, preparing to push above 7,900 meters, the instruction was simple and absolute: “When you come down after this climb, you will have three oxygen cylinders. These are yours. Bring them.” That was it. Our lives depended entirely on those three cylinders, and there was no margin for error, no room for distraction. You use what you have, and you make it back. We set off after 10:00 p.m. By 5:00 a.m., we had reached somewhere between 8,400 and 8,500 meters. But a heavy snowstorm had buried the ropes we had fixed in advance, and the Sherpas pushed ahead to dig them out from under the snow before we could continue. From there, we made our final push, and just before 9:00 a.m. on May 17, we stood on the summit of Everest. It was unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. Like a moment you have to pinch yourself to confirm it is real. I had imagined it so many times beforehand, planned exactly which photographs I would take, and I had carried flags from many places with that in mind. But standing at the very top, there is no space to unfurl a flag, no room to pose or linger. The summit is not what you picture. What I did manage, in the space of perhaps 10 to 15 seconds, was pull the Mongolian flag from inside my jacket, raise it toward my homeland, and cry out “Uukhai” (hurray). That moment, brief as it was, was one of the proudest of my life. There were climbers behind me in the line, and you cannot hold the summit to yourself. You make your moment, and you move.  The descent was harder than the climb up, and it took far longer than I expected. But I made it down.

What did Everest teach you that nothing else could have? 

In that moment, more than anything, I felt proud to have been born Mongolian. Standing there at the top of the world, gasping for every breath, I could not help but think about how extraordinarily lucky I was to have grown up in a land of clean, open air. I felt, perhaps more deeply than ever before, how free we are, and what a remarkable country we were born into. They say a person can survive for months without food. I witnessed that with my own eyes up there. For roughly 10 days, water was barely a consideration. Sleep, too, became something almost forgotten. But without air, a human being lasts only seconds. Just seconds. It was in those moments of desperate, conscious breathing that I truly understood what our ancestors meant when they called Mongolia “the land of cool mountains and cool breezes”. That ancient phrase, which we grow up hearing and perhaps take for granted, suddenly carried enormous weight. I found myself thinking about how rich we Mongolians truly are, not in a material sense, but in the most fundamental sense imaginable. Fresh air, open space, freedom of movement. Things we rarely stop to appreciate. And watching the people around me, working tirelessly, hour after hour, simply to survive at that altitude, made the contrast all the more striking. We are, without perhaps realizing it, among the most fortunate people on earth.

You made the climb alongside a young Sherpa born in the 1990s. In your experience, what sets Mongolian climbers apart? 

The Sherpas themselves will tell you that Mongolian climbers are strong and adapt to high altitudes as well as anyone, locals included. I think there is something real to that. The nature and climate of our country, the harsh conditions we are simply raised in, give Mongolians a genuine foundation for mountain sport. I noticed it too when training alongside climbers from other countries. There is a resilience there that is hard to explain but easy to observe. The true difference between us and the native Sherpas only becomes apparent above 6,400 meters, somewhere around Camp 2 or 3 and beyond. By that point, their lifetime of adaptation shows itself clearly. Their bodies have learned to function on remarkably little oxygen, consuming far less than the rest of us while moving with the same, if not greater, ease. It is not something you can train for in a few years. It is simply who they are, shaped by generations of life at altitude.

In your view, what is the golden rule of mountaineering?

In the mountains, so much comes down to the individual. Your natural physical makeup, your body, your health and above all your psychological preparation. There is simply no way to deceive yourself up there. If you are training for high-altitude or ice climbing and you allow yourself to slack off, even briefly, there is no recovering that ground when it matters most. One moment of carelessness, one misplaced step, and the consequences can be irreversible. People who take the mountains seriously understand this. Every training session is treated as if it were the first and the last. That sincerity is not optional. But I also believe, deeply, that mountain sport is not entirely in our hands. You are at the mercy of the sky above you, the mountain beside you, the water, the weather, and nature in its fullest, most indifferent sense. Luck is real, and it plays a role whether we like to admit it or not. I saw it myself. Young, experienced climbers, people in their prime with far more time on the mountain than I had, were taken by the ice and snow. Some lost their lives. Others were seriously injured. These were not careless people. They were skilled, seasoned, and prepared. But the mountain made its own decision. 

When did you last speak with your family before reaching the summit, and what was that first contact like once you were safely down?

My family and I last spoke on May 13, just before the final push. They told me that everything at home was in order, that preparations were made, and to not worry. “Just pray,” they said. That was the last I heard from them before the summit. On the afternoon of May 18, after I had come down, I learned that they had already received word. Our Sherpas had been relaying updates through their stations every step of the way, passing information to the company, who passed it on to our families in real time. When the news came through that I had reached the summit safely, they wept. It is understandable, of course. When someone you love is on that mountain, your mind does not naturally drift toward the best possible outcome. It drifts toward everything that could go wrong. That is what family does. They carry the weight of all the risks you have chosen to take, quietly and alone, while you are too focused on the next step to think about anything else.

You are originally from Khovd Province. Tell us about where you grew up, your family, and what shaped you as a child. 

I was born and raised in Bulgan soum, Khovd Province, the eldest of six children. My homeland sits at the foot of the majestic Altai Mountains in western Mongolia, and it is the homeland of the Torguud tribe. The Torguuds have left a deep mark on the nation’s history. When Chinggis Khaan rose to power, they served among his soldiers and counted distinguished figures in their ranks. Generation after generation, our ancestors fought for the independence and security of this country. That is a heritage we carry with great pride. My father spent his life in the high reaches of the Altai, grazing horses and cattle along ridges that rise 2,800 to 3,000 meters above sea level, in the beautiful highlands. I believe that upbringing shaped him in ways that are hard to put into words, physically, psychologically and spiritually. He prayed to the land and the mountains. I left for Everest carrying that with me, along with the emblem of my homeland and my country. About a week before my departure, I went to see my siblings. Without any warning, they gathered everyone together and announced a family meeting. “Who gave you permission to go there? Let’s put it to a vote,” they said. I had to laugh. I had told my family about this goal years earlier and had tried to bring them along gradually, to normalize it over time. But when the moment actually arrives, it turns out that no amount of preparation quite settles a family’s nerves. For my wife, my children, my siblings, all of them, every mountaineering trip is still a very big deal. And honestly, I think it always will be.

Now that you have reached the summit you set your sights on, do you find yourself feeling a sense of calm, or perhaps even a quiet emptiness? What comes next for you?

I have no concrete plans to climb another peak just yet. But life is full of surprises, and I will not pretend that the dream is entirely gone. Somewhere in the back of my mind, another summit waits. 

I studied and served at a border military school, so I brought the flag of the border guard organization last time. I have lived and worked in Nalaikh District for many years and had the honor of serving on the Ulaanbaatar Council, so I carried the flags of the district and the capital as well. The storm was fierce and the time painfully short, but I managed to raise all three and offer a prayer for the prosperity of our people. That mattered deeply to me.

There is a principle I have tried to live by, one I believe holds true not just for individuals but for nations. The wisdom of balance, of knowing how much is enough, is one of the most important things a person can cultivate. Too much of anything is never good. I sometimes feel that we Mongolians would benefit from pausing, stepping back and asking ourselves some honest questions. Who are we? Why are we on this particular path? And is this path truly the right one for us? We have wise, thoughtful and knowledgeable people among us, those who can see our situation from a higher and clearer vantage point. We should listen to them more carefully. If we find that we are indeed on the right path, then we should walk it with full conviction, not hesitantly, not halfway, but with the same resolve that carries a climber to the summit.