I heard this story on NPR this morning and REALLY wish our tweens were in the car to listen too: 13 year old Jordan Romero became the youngest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest earlier this week. During his press conference after returning to base camp, he said "I definitely encourage young people to 'Go Big!'"
Fans of this remarkable young man followed his ascent on his blog where they could view his location via a GPS tracker. He achieved the summit on May 22, 2010, and called his mother from 29,035 feet saying “Hello mom, it’s your son calling from the top of the world, everything’s ok. I did it.”
He was accompanied by his father, an EMT (and an amazing job/resource/skill to have on such an expedition), his father's girl friend, and three Nepalese sherpas. His father, Paul Romero, took a page from First Lady Michelle Obama's playbook saying that he hoped Jordan's achievement would encourage other parents to exercise with their children: "We live a life in the US where childhood obesity is at epidemic level. It's from people who are patting their kids and sticking the remote control in their hands and completely overfeeding them."
Jordan's climb was not without controversy - there are many who claim his father pressured him into the journey. Even the Nepalese government objected and refused to give the family permission to climb Everest from Nepal on account of Jordan's age. The Romero family then decided to approach the mountain from the Chinese side which made the ascent more difficult. For his part, Jordan says he saw a mural in his school about the 7 summit of the world and set his goal then to climb all 7 of them. Thus far, he's climbed 6 of the 7 - he plans to climb one in Antarctica this December.
Amazing.
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