100 Everest Achievements That Are Still Available
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Right now, former NFL player Mark Pattison is en route to make his summit push on Mount Everest. If he succeeds, according to the New York Times, “he will be the oldest N.F.L. player to have achieved the double challenge of both surmounting the Seven Summits, as the peaks are known, and climbing Everest and the neighboring Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest peak, within 24 hours.” Can you imagine? Achieving that while also being older than any other professional football player to do so? That’s the most impressive part, if you ask me. Anyone could climb all those mountains, but if you want to do it as the oldest former NFL player there are a lot more steps. First pee wee football, then you’ve got to train hard enough to get on the varsity team in high school, then you need to be recruited for a college team—ideally at a D1 school—and play well while avoiding injury, and then you need to be drafted for the NFL. All that before you’ve even started your mountaineering career. That’s dedication!
Pattison isn’t unique in his uniqueness. Every year, I receive press releases announcing very specific Everest achievements. They celebrate the first person from [insert area you’ve never heard of], oldest person from [insert area you’ve never heard of], youngest person from [insert area you’ve never heard of], or the first survivor of [insert disease you’ve never heard of] to climb the mountain, and they are usually climbing to raise awareness. What I’ve learned from this phenomena is that every guided Everest ascent can be a groundbreaking achievement if you hire a publicist. With that in mind, I’ve created this list of 100 incredible Everest achievements that are still available. All you need is $30,000 and a little creativity.
- First 5’2” person named Dave Bennigan from Ruso, North Dakota to climb Everest
- First person to play pogs on the summit of Everest, to raise awareness for Eosinophilic Esophagitis
- First infant to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest in 2022. (Believe it or not, this has not been done yet)
- First person to cook a flan on the summit of Everest, to raise awareness for severe dandruff
- First person to climb Everest and return without noticing they summited because they were so engrossed in an episode of This American Life
- First person to walk from the sea to the summit of Everest while chewing the same piece of gum, to raise awareness for how bad it hurts when you stub your pinky toe on the corner of a piece of furniture
- First person to climb Everest on a unicycle
- First person to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen, but with supplemental nitrous oxide
- First person to climb Everest to get as far away as possible from a scary spider they saw in Louisiana
- Youngest player for the NY Knicks to summit Everest
- Oldest woman named Janice from Connecticut to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest in reverse. (Start on the summit, descend to Base Camp, then climb back to the summit to finish)
- First two people to play Connect 4 on the summit of Everest, to raise awareness for meniscus tears
- First person to climb Everest by mistake
- First person to reclimb Everest while looking for their keys, to raise awareness for heterochromia
- First person named Tiger Woods to summit Everest
- First person to climb Everest starting from a submarine at the bottom of the Mariana Trench
- First person to climb Everest but turn back one step from the top after realizing that the true summit was the friends they made along the way
- Youngest Carl to climb Everest
- First person to open a food truck on the summit of Everest
- Biggest Seinfeld fan to summit Everest
- First person who once saw a moose while driving through Hewitt, Maine to climb Everest
- Fourteenth-est person named Lyle to climb Everest
- Worst NHL player to climb Everest
- The person with the most student loan debt to climb Everest
- First person wearing rainbow nail polish to summit Everest, to raise awareness for splinters
- Hairiest Mike to climb Everest
- Most recent-est person from North Hempstead, New York to climb Everest
- First conjunctivitis survivor to claim to be the first conjunctivitis survivor to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest using origami crampons
- First cobbler from Lancing, Michigan to climb Everest
- First former Naval officer and current high school physics teacher to climb Everest
- First pet portrait artist to climb Everest, to raise awareness for trypophobia
- First person who was exonerated after spending 30 years as a fugitive for an unpaid parking ticket to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest in jorts
- First person who once got sneezed on by a giraffe at the Six Flags drive-through safari in Jackson, NJ to climb Everest
- First 38-year-old blond arborist to climb Everest, to raise awareness for gas pain
- First survivor of a really gnarly knee scrape from a skateboarding fall to climb Everest
- First hairdresser named Staciny to climb Everst
- First heir to an umbrella factory tycoon to climb Everest
- First person who saw Steely Dan play live back in ‘81 to climb Everest, to raise awareness for biting your tongue by accident
- First siding repairman who collects belt buckles in their free time to climb Everest
- First president of the United States of America to climb Everest
- First survivor of trying to give themself a haircut, messing up, and then just buzzing the whole thing to climb Everest
- First owner of 14 cats to climb Everest
- First Jonas Brother to climb Everest
- First survivor of getting sprayed by a skunk to climb Everest
- First dental hygienist named Tracy Freese, born on October 4, 1991 and living in Akron, Ohio with her loving husband, two wonderful children, and pet hamster named “Hambone,” whose been thinking about going back to school, to climb Everest
- First person to summit Everest on a dirt bike
- First Senior Vice President of Product at Microsoft and banjo enthusiast to climb Everest
- First First MLB player who can eat 50 chicken wings in one sitting to climb Everest
- First person who is afraid of horses but not mules to climb Everest, to raise awareness for falling in the shower
- First person named Darbligz to climb Everest (may require name change)
- First certified Subaru technician who moonlights as a security guard at a root beer bottling plant to climb Everest
- First Queen of England to climb Everest
- First disgraced spelling bee champion to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest while in a coma, to raise awareness for comas
- First nine-time divorcee to climb Everest
- First person who once had dreams of being an Olympic ice dancer but gave them up for a practical job at an accounting firm to climb Everest
- First survivor of falling down a well to summit Everest
- First ascent of a new route on Everest (just wander off the South Col route a little bit at one point and you can claim its a new variation)
- First person to climb Everest without environmental oxygen (put on your oxygen mask before you arrive in Nepal and don’t take it off until you’re back on the plane)
- First survivor of being marooned on a raft in the pacific ocean for 18 months surviving on rainwater, fish, and seagulls before being rescued by a Taiwanese fishing boat to climb Everest, to raise awareness for seasonal allergies
- First person who drives a red 2015 Toyota Corolla LE to climb Everest
- First person raised by wolves to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest in between shifts as a fry cook at McDonald’s
- First sushi chef to climb Everest after accidentally cutting off all of their fingers on one hand while preparing sushi
- Smelliest Robert to climb Everest
- First person who was the star athlete of their high school cross-country team but then let themself go for a while and is now climbing Everest to prove to themself that they can still be a champion to climb Everest
- First mail person to deliver mail on the summit of Everest
- First person to steal another climber’s wallet on the summit of Everest
- First person to get busted for selling drugs on the summit of Everest
- First person who got an associates degree in anesthesia technology from Oklahoma City Community College to climb Everest
- First person who can play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on Ukulele to climb Everest, to raise awareness for mad cow disease
- First women’s high school soccer coach from Klamath Falls, Oregon to climb Everest
- First otherwise completely unremarkable person to climb Everest
- First survivor of nearly getting run off the road by a careless driver while biking to work to climb Everest
- First person who played a tree in their sixth grade production of Alice in Wonderland to climb Everest
- First 46-year-old woman who grew up in Idaho but moved to Georgia in her late-20s to climb Everest
- First survivor of nearly choking on a large piece of unpeeled cucumber to climb Everest
- First person who is currently trying to sell their moped to climb Everest, to raise awareness for periodontal disease
- Surliest beefcake to climb Everest
- First person that saw Terminator 2: Judgement Day three times in theaters to climb Everest
- First survivor of nearly falling off their roof while checking the siding for raccoon damage to climb Everest
- First alpaca farmer from Winifred, Montana to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest without any oxygen. (This would be very impressive!)
- First 51-year-old man named Jeff who stepped on a nail when he was three years old and then went on to live a relatively happy life to climb Everest
- First drummer for a Misfits cover band to climb Everest
- First person to climb Everest while insisting it’s not a big deal and no more dangerous than driving to work
- First person to spin in circles 100 times and then fly to Nepal to climb Everest
- Most well-read UFC fighter to climb Everest
- The Liechtensteiner with the most-average red blood cell count to climb Everest
- First survivor of getting kicked in the gut by a kangaroo to climb Everest
- Last VCR repair person to climb Everest
- First person to chug a gallon of milk in the death zone en route to summit Everest
- First survivor of a 20-car pile-up to climb Everest, to raise awareness for sprained ankles
- First woman named Eleanor Blythe Siebert born on 4/10/1981 at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico who has the social security number [REDACTED] to climb Everest
- Last person to climb Everest, ever
- First person to admit that they’re climbing Everest to raise awareness for the fact that they’re climbing Everest
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