We shouldn’t be fighting this, guys.
It’s called natural selection.
My son climbed Mt. Washington with me and the AMC at 8. He choked at one point on some open faced rock. We were all able to talk him through his fear. Mt. Everest is something I would never attempt with a child. It sounds like they are not thinking of his best interest.
Why not wait a few years until he is mature enough to handle it? I don’t think he has enough body fat and muscle. I hope this isn’t one of those parents seeking attention stunts and using their child as the hook.
Have the parents climbed it already? This is extremely dangerous…
Bear Grylls climbed Everest when he was 23 (youngest Brit to do so). He said at that time it was thought to be particularly dangerous to younger people because they didn’t have the patience, experience, and good judgement older climbers supposedly possessed. (Though he climbed, for practice, another mountain in the area thought to be unclime-able before tackling Everest.)
No guide? Someone should arrest those parents for child endangerment.
I’m with you. When my son lost it at about 3 thousand feet it was only with the help of some great AMC guides that he was able to go on. Once we were off the rock wall he enjoyed the rest of the climb.
Bear Grylls was 23 so his child should be able to do it at 13? If the kid dies both parents should do hard time for being so ignorant.
Not when we account for risk factors. Come on.
The “best” days on Everest are still very dangerous days, sufficiently so as to preclude “anyone” climbing it. It is patent nonsense to say that on a good day anyone can climb Everest.
Having climbed Kilimanjaro does not qualify one as being ready to climb Everest, not by a long shot. You know this.
Well, ya, sure. As 8000 peaks go.
As planets go, Mars isn’t very far away. As gunshot wounds go, a .22 isn’t as bad as a Barrett 50 Caliber.
And that would be cool if I accepted the fact that this child was mature enough to make this kind of mistake. Fuck his parents, they can jump off cliffs for all I care.
Really? Because you’re acting a whole awful lot like you haven’t the slightest idea.
When John Quincy Adams was 12, his dad took him on a boat across the atlantic to paris. During a war. Since it was a war, it was likely they would come under attack. Which they did(the privateer that attacked them was, iirc, either taken a prize or burned). Then, young John Quincy, at the tender age of 14, was sent by his dad to work as a secretary for an ambassador to russia. Must have been a horrible experience. He only went on to be President…
We coddle kids too much nowadays.
Bravo for the kid for attempting something most of us would be scared to do, and bravo to the father giving is son a chance at an experience the likes of which most of us will never have.
From the Backpacker Magazine article.
That, to me, doesn’t sound like someone ready to climb Everest. It is even worse when you consider that Aconcagua is 6000 feet short of Everest and is not a technical climb. It is more of a put one foot in front of the other type climb. Still difficult because of the altitude, but not anything like Everest.
Despite his parents claims, it really looks like they are pushing him on. At Everest’s altitude, even with supplemental oxygen, people are barely able to be responsible for themselves. Adding in the responsibility of a child, especially with a large desire to see that child succeed, is not a good idea. Then there are the health risks:
This is just a bad idea all around.
I thought it was a bad idea, but not really deserving of being called “child endagerment”, until I read this:
:eek:
Braskey taught his son to drive by entering him into the Indy 500. The kid wrecked and died. Brasky said, “It would have happened sometime!”
It’ll definitely get him laid, and for a 13-year-old boy, a 100% prospect of poontang easily outweighs a 10% chance of death.
Oh yeah? Well they can fall off Mt. Everest for all I care! Oh wait, there’s a pretty good chance of that happening anyway. 
My understanding is that if you get in trouble way up on those tall, tall mountains, either you rescue yourself or you die. If you can’t walk, there’s not a lot anybody can do for you without killing themselves. Is that not true?
What does one have to do with the other? How do we know that the that’s why he became president? I’m guessing being a rich white male with family connections had a lot more to do with it than not being coddled.
Besides, the kid will still have the experience when he’s of legal age. In five years, it may still be a stupid decision that gets him killed but it’s his decision to make.
Yep, that is true.
To a point, rescues are attempted. I’ve read accounts of people being dragged down by groups of people working in teams, or that sort of thing. But this can’t be done for the entire climb; at very high altitude, it’s extraordinarily difficult to move about at all, let alone try to lower someone down sheer ice walls. That’s also assuming that conditions stay good enough for a rescue. If the weather turns, as it often does, visibility and temperature can make rescue impossible.
If you don’t have guides or sherpas, the risk increases a huge amount. Your judgement simply isn’t the same at 8,000+ that it is at sea level. If you’re in trouble, there are no emergency services. Now other teams, with their own limited resources, are expected to save you - putting their own lives at risk.
Look, I have no problem with an adult making risky choices. I have a huge problem with an adult making risky choices that puts other people in danger, and I have a huge problem with an adult okaying a child to make an incredibly risky choice on top of this.
Everest climbing is ugly. It is not a place for a 13 year old. This is not coddling, this is being realistic. A 5 year old shouldn’t be manning a chainsaw, either. Maybe it’ll be fine, but if it’s not – and considering two inexperienced (yes, inexperienced) climbers are attempting to summit without guides, this is very likely – it will be really, really not at all fine.
Interesting article in Wikipedia on the Timeline of climbing Mount Everest.
First attempt in 1922.
First success in 1953. (John Hunt and Edmund Hillary knighted for their efforts.)
Apa Sherpa’s 19th climb in 2009. (Reached summit first time in 1990.)
It seems that the article includes all the deaths that have occurred on Mount Everest.
John Quincy Adams went sailing on a ship one time and his ship got attacked, then worked for an ambassador. He became president 40 years later. This proves it’s a great idea for this 13-year-old to climb Mount Everest. We can all agree that working a desk job in Russia is very similar to climbing a 29,000-foot mountain, right? (Not mentioned: John Quincy’s father was in Europe most of the time he was; he was ambassador and they often traveled together. Also his father became the president, which might have helped John Quincy’s job prospects somewhat.) Anyway you make a good point: kids who don’t climb Mount Everest are wimps.
I wonder how the danger this kid will face on Everest compares to the danger an infantryman in Iraq or Afghanistan faces, in terms of death rates and things like that.
No, I understand exactly the risks, and as I said, I’d never allow a child under my control to attempt a trip like this. I’ve been to altitude and I know the affect it had on me and the people around me. I have had friends die at altitude, and I have friends there right now, attempting Everest along side this kid.
But I’m not willing to put this in the realm of child endangerment. It’s very risky, as are many things in life. It’s not something I’d choose for myself or my family. But I’ve seen friends make the choice that I would not, and I can’t see how I could restrict them or their children from attempting something like this.
It’s a “freedom of the hills” thing, and it’s hard for me to separate it from other outdoors activities that are less dangerous but still more dangerous than most people would allow their children to take on. If we can rule out this activity, I can easily see a day where Trish would not be allowed to take her 6-year old daughter up Mt Adams in winter, and that would be wrong IMO. In these situations, is usually the general public, who doesn’t really understand the sport, making uninformed decisions about others well-being. Everest is certainly an extremely dangerous place, but I still don’t like drawing the line. I realize that it’s somewhat inconsistent since I support mandatory child seat (but not bike or ski helmet laws) for kids. I struggle with that inconstancy, and don’t have a good answer.