Youngest Person To Climb Everest

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Summiting The World’s Highest Mountain at 13
When Jordan Romero was nine, he saw a mural. By 15, he'd conquered all of the Seven
Summits.
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You remember being 13. Your rst ‘cool’ band t-shirt, your mum buying you industrial quantities of
Clearasil on a weekly basis, your lunchtime kickabouts behind the sports hall; you remember it all.
Those sleepovers that were all about being the best at Playstation, the tentative steps towards being
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adequate at bass guitar, your rst embarrassing a empt at irtatious interaction with the opposite
sex; it’s all so vivid isn’t it? Now picture that adolescent
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T of yourself standing on the summit of
Everest. Can’t do it, can you? The thought of your pubescent-self atop the world’s highest mountain is
just too absurd.
Jordan Romero, now 21, was di erent. At the unbelievably young age of 13 years, 10 months and 10
days, he made it to Everest’s peak and, in doing so, dramatically rewrote the mountaineering record
books. The feat of becoming the youngest person ever to climb the legendary mountain, the previous
record holder had been a comparatively ancient 15, led to an explosion of media coverage; thrusting
Jordan, and his climbing family, under the brightest of spotlights.
“My parents didn’t drag me up the mountain. If anything, it

was the other way round.”
“Ge ing to the summit of Everest was such a surreal moment, man. I really couldn’t believe it. I was so
mind-blown at the fact I was standing on top of it. It was just something that… I guess I had never
been so present in the moment,” Jordan tells us via Skype.
Achieving something so impressive at such a young age would, you might think, have led to a
unanimously positive reaction from observers. However, in perhaps the most extreme example of
that famous old saying ‘you can’t please everyone’, there were critics who spoke out against Jordan
and the adults in his life for taking a 13-year old up a mountain that, at the time of his ascent, had
already claimed the lives of 217 climbers. Since 2010, this number has increased to 290.
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Screenshot of Jordan Romero’s appearance on an American talk show in 2010 (via CBS | YouTube).
“There was a lot of criticism going on about it. There were a lot of misguided assumptions that we
were climbing for the wrong reasons, that we were this super rich family doing this. But, you know, we
had to do a lot of crowdsourcing, and fundraising, and nancing in order to make it happen. When we
said we were from a small town in California, we were being honest. We were just people who wanted
to travel, see the world, and experience life,” Jordan says, before adding, “My parents didn’t drag me
up the mountain. If anything, it was the other way round.”
It’s worth stressing at this point that Jordan isn’t just the youngest person in history to climb Everest.
He’s also the youngest person in history to conquer all of the Seven Summits (the highest mountain
on each of the world’s seven continents). Alongside his dad (Paul Romero) and his dad’s then-partner
Karen Lundgren, Jordan began ticking them o in July 2006, aged 10, when he made it to the top of
Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest mountain. He completed the collection ve years later when, aged 15
years, 5 months, and 12 days, he made it to the top of Antarctica’s Vinson Massif.
“In terms of moody teenage strops, I won’t deny that I had

some really frustrating moments in my head…”
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I picture myself climbing big mountains at that age and can easily imagine myself shouting at my
parents and storming o to my tent at the slightest provocation. Surely, considering Jordan’s age at
the time and the stresses he was under, there must have been some classic ‘Kevin and Perry’ type
rages along the way?
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my
head, but I never wanted to burden anyone else with my emotions. I did my best to focus on the big
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picture and how lucky I was to travel to these incredible locations,” Jordan says, revealing a maturity
level that I, even as a full-grown adult, have yet to reach.
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I was curious to know what, if it wasn’t his parents’ in uence, planted the seed of inspiration in
Jordan’s mind and led him to tackling the highest mountain on each of the world’s seven continents
before he was old enough to legally buy alcohol or drive a car.
“I don’t know if there was one single moment but this whole thing started when I was nine. I came
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the name of it. It just totally captured my a ention and I guess you could say that was when I was
dove into mountaineering head rst,” re ects Jordan.
You could be forgiven for thinking, without meeting him and considering all that he’s achieved, that
Jordan would be a bit full of himself. I can report though that this is de nitely not the case. It’s clear,
virtually right from the o , that he’s humble enough to acknowledge how important the support of his
family has been.
“So, I climbed with my Dad and his long-term girlfriend. They never actually ended up ge ing married,
but we did every single one of them together and I’m so grateful for that every day. To this day, my Dad,
Karen, and my biological Mum are still killing it in life. They’re huge inspirations to me,” Jordan says.
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Shot of Jordan and his Dad up on Vinson. Photo: Karen Lundgren.
“A er doing the Seven Summits, we had plans to do the adventure grand slam. Trek to the South Pole
and the North Pole to see if I could be the youngest person to do that but Karen and my Dad were
spli ing up, and yeah that was tough to take. Karen was just such an essential backbone to our
expeditions and without her nothing was really able to evolve or be followed through on. She was all
about the logistics, and the nances, and you know the stu to actually make it happen. Looking
back, I really should have kept that momentum going,” Jordan tells me, when I ask him about what
came a er.
With his Dad now living in Hawaii, where he runs his own business, and Jordan studying
Environmental Studies and Economics in Utah, it can seem from the outside looking in that this
young record-holder has put the big mountain climbs very much on the backburner. Now a
passionate skier, and with university studies to think of, is Jordan itching to get the band back
together and summit again with the man who’s been with him since the very beginning? And, if so,
would his Dad be up for it?
“Absolutely. He de nitely would. I really do miss climbing with him. He was super knowledgeable
about stu . You know, he was really so good at critical decision making. My Dad was a vital
component of the team. Being there. Planning stu . Strategising what to do and when to summit the
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mountain. Right now, my university schedule is a li le more on the priority list but hell man if we had
some plane tickets to go to Nepal tomorrow for an expedition, I know I’d do it in a heartbeat and I’m
sure he would too,” Jordan says.
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“Find your Everest in life. Find that passion that gets you out
of bed every day…”
Because of Jordan’s area of academic interest, coupled with the fact he’s American, our conversation
inevitably dri s towards environmental concerns and the actions of climate change-denying
President Donald J. Trump.
“Climate change is something I’ve seen rst hand by going all round the world. And going to Mount
Kilimanjaro and going to Indonesia, where we’re climbing next to the world’s largest gold and copper
mine which is just the worst polluting source. In that area, it’s just absolutely devastating a lot of the
local communities and indigenous people so there’s a lot of environmental injustices that I’ve seen
rst hand.
“With Trump in o ce, I could only imagine how scary it must be from an outside perspective. Maybe
you’ve heard this but it was the U.S, Syria, and Nicaragua that were the three countries that weren’t
on the Paris Climate Agreement when it was announced that we were pulling out of it. Then, Syria
and Nicaragua became a part of it so now we’re the only country in the world that aren’t on board with
it.
“For me, Trump is just too much of liability. Honestly, I wouldn’t care if we had a Republican President
right now. But the fact that we’ve got someone who’s so incompetent and with such a large ego, and
who can outright call bullshit and #FakeNews to whatever he wants. That’s an example he’s se ing to
a lot of people and, look, if we’re going down that route then we’re all fucked,” says Jordan, o ering up
his own brutally honest take on the current state of politics across the pond.
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Jordan Romero climbed Mount Everest when he was just 13 years old. Photo via Ge y Images.
Ending things on such a bleak note when Jordan’s story is such an upli ing one feels wrong
somehow. Weeks later, when pu ing this piece together, one particularly optimistic response Jordan
gives, about midway through our chat, stands out above the rest: “Find your Everest in life,” he tells
me, “Find that passion that gets you out of bed every day because if you have the right tools, and the
right mindset, you can do anything you want to do.”
Delivered with Jordan’s sunny Californian accent, it feels like a line straight out of a motivational
quotes co ee table book; one that wouldn’t look out of place inside a generic landscape image on
your mum’s Facebook feed. Said by anyone else it would feel like too much of a cliche. In the case of
Jordan, however, a man who accomplished so much so young and who is insanely modest about it all
to boot, I can’t help but warm to its underlying message that age is just a number and that no
adventure is impossible – especially if you’ve got a big imagination and a willing family unit to back
you up.
To read the rest of Mpora’s December ‘Family’ Issue head here
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10/01/2018 Youngest Person To Climb Everest | Jordan Romero on ...

Mountaineering & Expeditions

Youngest Person To Climb Everest | Jordan Romero on

“My parents didn’t drag me up the mountain. If anything, it

“In terms of moody teenage strops, I won’t deny that I had

2 Annapurna Base Camp Essential - First Himalayan

3 Base camp trek in Himalayas? - Wild water rafting in Ne

Shot of Jordan and his Dad up on Vinson. Photo: Karen Lundgren.

To read the rest of Mpora’s December ‘Family’ Issue head here

You May Also Like:

 There are 0 comments. Add yours.

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