I recently saw this article in the news. Apparently a 13 year old California boy, Jordan Romero, is planning to climb Mt. Everest along with his mother and father.
This strikes me as an incredibly bad idea. Everest kills something like 10% of people who climb it. What kind of parents would permit- much less encourage- something with those odds? The effects of a low-oxygen atmosphere on a growing brain are unknown.
Furthermore this shows that an Everest summit is no longer a feat of mountaineering as much as a feat of finance. It encourages more inexperienced and unqualified climbers to try the still-deadly odds.
A 13 year old boy is probably not significantly smaller or weaker than your average woman. On average he will be 5’2". As such, I would expect that you would be able to find equipment his size, so it won’t be overly loose and in the way.
As to whether or not it’s wise: Well no. It’s stupid for anyone to risk a 10% chance of death for no practical purpose. It’s not exploration, it’s not humanitarian, nor is it even novel. But that’s as true for the parents as for the boy.
By the standards of modern America, a child isn’t bright enough to make life endangering decisions, but his parents are…well, to some extent–for instance, they cannot let him drive (which is far less dangerous). Whether that law is wise or not probably depends a lot on your personal beliefs. Some might think of childhood as being little different from adulthood. You are expected to be able to make rational decisions, and the only way to do that is to allow stupid and life-threatening mistakes. Others view childhood as being a time when you are to be protected by all means necessary, regardless of anything, because you are a child.
Never the twain shall meet.
But what can be said is that almost certainly the parents are not being philosophic about it, they’re just being idiots. That’s never moral.
Sounds like a money-making stunt to me…
Seriously, isn’t it time to call a halt to this? I mean 185 dead bodies and a pile of trash on the mountain…whatever climbing Everest once meant, it doesn’t anymore.
Well, neither of the articles mention if the kid will be using bottled oxygen or not. One can only assume he will be using it as a matter of safety. However, I do recall somebody saying and it may have been in “Into Thin Air”, that people should only be allowed to climb Everest without oxygen. That way only truly qualified climbers would be on the mountain.
I’ve seen kids much younger than 13 tackle some pretty serious hikes here in the States and beyond. Some kids really love the challenge and are extremely self-motivated; it’s not the parents pushing them. Since I don’t know these people I can’t say if that’s the case here.
It’s certainly a dangerous activity, not one I’d take on myself, but I can’t fault them for taking on the challenge. I have a friend climbing Everest right now and I’m well aware of the risks, costs, and effort required. I’m willing to let the parents decide what is within the kid’s ability level. Good luck to them all.
A 13 year old isn’t allowed to sign legally binding documents because it’s understood that a child that young cannot make an informed decision. Putting a child in unnecessary risk is child endangerment, what the kid wants to do is irrelevant.
I saw this news story a few days ago, and just shook my head.
What about endurance?
Well, I think the 10% needs some closer examination-- do they fit some general profile, and if I’m a healthy adult with tons of experience climbing and I train properly, what is my chance of dying?
But yeah, I can’t see that it’s smart to allow a 13 year old to do this. Maybe at 16, depending on the person. There is so much difference between a 13 year old a 16 year old.
I see kids climbing winter peaks here in New England, some as young as 7-8. The parents aren’t pushing them to do so, the kids love it and want to do more. As long as the parents are providing the proper guidance and use their judgment, I heartily approve.
Yes, it has risk, but so does life. I’ll leave it to the parents to decide what “unnecessary” risk entails for their own children. If the parents were pushing the kid to do so I’d be much more inclined to view them unfavorably, but in following this case I don’t think they are.
Is endurance different from musculature? The male body is, I believe, slightly better adapted to physical labor so between a 5’2" woman or a 5’2" boy, given the same training, I’d expect the boy to be at the advantage of the two.
Okay, but “winter peaks” in New England are not Everest. Everest is inherently dangerous, far beyond the scope of any New England peak. A significant number of people – including incredibly fit people, and experienced climbers and guides – die every year on Everest. You very likely will see corpses on your way up to the summit. People can, and do, frequently leave people behind because rescue is not possible beyond certain heights. You work it out and climb down, or you lay down and expire. There is no backup, no helicopter can reach you. If you can’t climb down under your own power, you die, period.
In addition to this, many people experience debilitating injuries from their climb. Taking off your gloves for a few minutes can cause loss of fingers - lose a glove, lose a hand. Taking off your sunglasses for a few minutes can cause snow blindness, which is life-threatening when it strikes during descent. Cerebral edema, pulmenary edema, these can strike without warning.
Everest climbing is a very dangerous activity that really should not be taken on by most people. Even many successful summiters have no business, in my opinion, on the mountain - because they got lucky doesn’t make it safe to keep pushing the boundaries. It is absolutely and completely irresponsible to take a 13 year old to climb on Everest, not only for the child, but for the child’s parents and expedition guides who are put at risk if the experiment goes badly awry.
If I had a 13-year-old who wanted to climb Everest I wouldn’t allow it. Of course, if I had a 10-year-old who wanted to climb Kilimanjaro I wouldn’t allow that either, and he’s already done that. He may have enough mountain climbing experience to be a reasonable candidate to tackle Everest. My bigger problem is why his parents would get into this in the first place.
Excellent. We don’t want to limit our kid, so we help him do whatever he wants no matter how bad an idea it is. That we he can reach his full potential. Unless he dies scaling a mountain that he could have climbed years from now, when he was stronger and more able to make a decision, in which case he doesn’t reach his full potential at all.
Yes, but climbing peaks in New England in winter is inherently dangerous too, and people die every few years, even fit experienced hikers. This kid isn’t an average kid either, he’s already done more serious climbing than I have. It’s all a matter of degree. The exact same arguments are raised when young children do the New Hampshire 4000’ers in winter and people complain that we’re pushing younger and younger kids to attempt a very dangerous activity. It’s a valid concern, just like this discussion is a valid one.
I don’t feel comfortable drawing a bright line and saying that “this activity is too dangerous for a child”; that’s (for the most part) a parent’s job. I know the dangers of big mountain climbing and I would be unlikely to encourage or allow my child to get anywhere near a climb like this. But it’s not irresponsible on the face of it to allow a 13-year old to climb it, at least not to me. You’ll get no argument from me that many/most climbers on Everest shouldn’t be there, but I still wouldn’t restrict them from going.
I wish the kid good luck, and hopefully he’ll climb responsibly and respectfully.