Everest Madness

[jshamster]

Amidst weddings and helicopter landings:

 

http://news.bellinghamherald.com/stories/20050603/TopStories/248025.shtml

[texplorer]

If you don't want to read through the entire news report, here's my translation.

 

Rich parents send 20 year old to world's biggest chestbeating spot.

 

Yes, Danielle Fisher has climbed the world's highest summit where only few people (ok 1000's) have gone. Not many people are able to get to the summit of everest due to not being able to ride in helicopters or paying to slide ascenders up ropes anchored to the snow.

 

Danielle has now accomplished a lifelong dream (2 whole years worth of dreaming) to be the youngest person to be able to brag about climbing a via ferrata slog. Danielle was able to accomplish all this despite being ADD. Yes, she had trouble paying attention in algebra class but was able to focus long enough to ask her daddy and other companies for the insane amount of money to climb Mt. Everest.

 

Congrats Danielle-your cool now.

[Ade]

Oh but you're missing the best bit. Her wildly self promoting vanity web site

 

http://www.daniellefisher.com/

 

 

[jmace]

that is fucking priceless, I hope to inspire others to climb who have disabilities

 

I can't pay attention is a disabilty, good god, I must have all sorts of disabilities,

[MCash]

Alright, alright. Her dad Jerome is a really nice guy, and posts here fairly regularly. I think it's a great accomplishment at that age.

[sunyata]

If it were more focused on that (age) instead, some might look at it in a different light. On her website and in the news the focus seems to be a lot on the ADD part , which I think is a bit much. Yes, it's a disability, but to me if someone climbed Everest with actual limiting physical handicaps, the emphasis on that would be more appropriate.

[Alpinfox]

if someone climbed Everest with actual limiting physical handicaps, the emphasis on that would be more appropriate.

 

If?

 

[BreezyD]

Can't you all just let her (and everyone else for that matter) enjoy climbing in whatever way she chooses and be encouraging instead of bitter and jaded?

 

20 years old ... sheesh ... and a Washington girl even! Congratulations Danielle!

[Gary_Yngve]

Anyone who says that ADD is a disability is weak. ADD is just a ploy for pharmaceutical companies to get rich off of selling meds. Everyone gets distracted from doing homework. It takes discipline and willpower to keep focused.

[olyclimber]

I'll forgive her for climbing Kosciusko rather than the Carstensz Pyramid. If I remember correctly, when I was 20 I finally got my drivers license and got fired from my job making pizzas.

[Alpinfox]

Anyone who says that ADD is a disability is weak. ADD is just a ploy for pharmaceutical companies to get rich off of selling meds. Everyone gets distracted from doing homework. It takes discipline and willpower to keep focused.

 

Bullshit Gary. ADD is real. I think it's over diagnosed and I agree the pharmas have a big stake in that, but if you see someone with a severe case, you wouldn't be so dismissive.

[Gary_Yngve]

that is fucking priceless, I hope to inspire others to climb who have disabilities

 

I can't pay attention is a disabilty, good god, I must have all sorts of disabilities,

 

A few years ago, we had a student who had convinced the university that he had a disability that prevented him from meeting deadlines on assignments. He had unlimited extensions on everything, even beyond when the quarter actually ended.

[Allan_Halsey]

One point for each summit:

1) I'm glad it was her and not that other wanna-be.

2) She's pretty cute in a wholesome way, not like that other chick. That one's nasty, like Paris Hilton.

3) How's she doing in her classes?

4) Let's see her do the approach to Nursery Pass without corporate sponsorship and coolies carrying all her shit.

5) If a fucking BLIND GUY and a GUY WITH NO LEGS can "climb" Everest, I'd say the challenge is gone.

6) She should call it "McEverest" or "Everest, a division of Turner Broadcasting" not "Cholomungla" or whatever. That fucking thing is no holy place with all the rich fat whities crawling all over it.

7) Who's going to be the first nine foot tall albino quadrapelegic black lesbian with ghonnerea and myopia to climb the seven summits?

[Gary_Yngve]

Can't you all just let her (and everyone else for that matter) enjoy climbing in whatever way she chooses and be encouraging instead of bitter and jaded?

 

20 years old ... sheesh ... and a Washington girl even! Congratulations Danielle!

 

We aren't criticizing the climbing. We're criticizing the self-aggrandizing.

 

Are we bitter and jaded? Sure. Most of us weren't born with a silver spoon. Other than time, money, and general fitness, there's nothing challenging about slogging the seven summits.

[Gary_Yngve]

Youngest person to do XYZ.

 

The more I think about it, the above as a record is meaningless, and probably even detrimental to society.

 

Being the youngest person to do XYZ often means that you are sacrificing other portions of your life (i.e. socialization for precocious geniuses) instead of living a balanced life.

 

What's way more important is the cumulative contributions over someone's life. An earlier start can help with that, but there's often no correlation. Chances are Danielle will not go on to put up FAs in the mountains. The fact that she was the youngest is largely meaningless (or in fact further trivializes the seven-summits trophy).

 

I do think it is worthy though to reward young folks who show potential to having a cumulative career of greatness. Climbing the seven summits does not show much potential in my opinion.

[Gary_Yngve]

That fucking thing is no holy place with all the rich fat whities crawling all over it.

 

That's right, don't the Sherpas freak out if they think folks in basecamp are having sex, because it's offending the mountain?

[Squid]

Gary, I think you're going off the deep end. Leave the computer and go for walk in the nice summer air.

[olyclimber]

Also, when I was 20, I think I got dumped by my girlfriend.

[murraysovereign]

...there's nothing challenging about slogging the seven summits

 

I remember hearing someone (Pat Morrow, maybe?) arguing that the Seven Summits thing was really just a sideshow, and that the real challenge was in climbing the second-highest peak on each continent: K2 instead of Everest; Kenya instead of Kilimanjaro; Logan instead of Denali, etc. In most, if not all cases, the second-highest peak was technically or logistically more difficult.

 

As for Danielle, good on her. Even though the road she's been travelling the last couple of years has been done to death lately, it's still quite an accomplishment, and she'll be a much fuller person for the experience - especially compared to her peers hangin' out at the food court.

[Gary_Yngve]

Bullshit Gary. ADD is real. I think it's over diagnosed and I agree the pharmas have a big stake in that, but if you see someone with a severe case, you wouldn't be so dismissive.

 

I'm still skeptical. When I was 19, I was taking 20+ hours of course credits, and TAing at the same time. My only sibling took his own life. I didn't take time off. I didn't ask for extensions or other special arrangements.

I dealt with it and used my willpower to continue with my studies as if it hadn't have happened. I see now that I could have prostituted myself and my circumstances to bilk a free climb of Everest.

[olyclimber]

Bullshit Gary. ADD is real. I think it's over diagnosed and I agree the pharmas have a big stake in that, but if you see someone with a severe case, you wouldn't be so dismissive.

 

I'm still skeptical. When I was 19, I was taking 20+ hours of course credits, and TAing at the same time. My only sibling took his own life. I didn't take time off. I didn't ask for extensions or other special arrangements.

I dealt with it and used my willpower to continue with my studies as if it hadn't have happened. I see now that I could have prostituted myself and my circumstances to bilk a free climb of Everest.

 

Gary...step away from the computer. Seriously.

 

A terrible situation is not the same as a medical disorder.

Sorry about your brother.

[iain]

Oh come now, if you were given the financial opportunity to climb these mountains, no matter how cheezy the line you used to fund it, would you not leap at the chance? I'd do just about anything to go climb K2 or something like that. Unnecessary hype seems to be part of the reality of climbing the big stuff over there. I am not suggesting that it is right, but I can understand the need to do so.

[Alan]

My hats off to her for being able to do it at such a young age. My biggest worry for anyone so young accomplishing so much is the letdown afterwards. What can top that? Sure, the second highest peak list, but I mean in other peoples eyes and their expectations. Nothing will beat this.

 

It will take a strong person to be able to live their own life now and appreciate their accomplishments without losing sight of even more personal and rewarding ones that lie ahead. It's like the person that earned a million dollars over the course of their life can really appreciate it that much more than someone who inherits or grows up with it (she did have to work for it, but might not be able to appreciate it as much).

 

Hopefully she is a strong sense of self and worth. That will be the challenge now.

 

Way to go Danielle! Stay strong! (and PM me if you want my number!)

[Alan]

Hey, why am I still a mini-wanker? When does my status change? I though 100 posts would do it. Once a mini-wanker, always a mini-wanker? What the...?

[jshamster]

Yeah Alan, I'm still a miniwsnker too. Who knows with this board?

 

Anyway, I originally posted this just because I thought that, though it doesn't run with my ideas on climbing, it is a pretty awesome accomplishment at age 20.

 

Have fun y'all, Jimbo.