Boy, 13, Youngest to Climb Mount Everest: Can Anybody Do it?
Big news this weekend as a 13-year-old California kid became the youngest person to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest. Jordan Romero’s climb got us at Opposing Views thinking — if a barely teenaged boy can climb Everest, is it even a big deal anymore? And should children be climbing a mountain that soars more than 27,000 feet? When Edmund Hillary became the first man to reach the summit in 1953 (with the help of his unheralded Sherpa, of course), he instantly became a legend. In the years that followed, climbing Everest was the goal for adventurers. But that appears to be changing. Now everybody seems to be climbing Mount Everest — even children. It’s getting so common, Sherpas are acting as garbage men, collecting all of the trash the multitude of hikers are leaving behind. Hillary never had high-tech breathing systems, GPS, escalators to the top or a Starbucks at the summit. (Alright, that hasn’t happened just yet.) Jordan said he was inspired to climb Everest by a painting at
