Naperville Teen Headed to the Top Of Mt. Everest!
Kids are constantly doing amazing things! I know people like to bad-mouth the younger generation with quips like “kids these days…blah blah blah,” but they just aren’t looking for the positive stories. They aren’t looking for stories about Naperville’s Lucy Westlake!
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Kevin Schmit of the Daily Herald did an incredible write-up about Lucy chronicling 18-year-old Lucy’s monumentous undertaking of becoming the youngest American female to scale the world’s tallest mountain. As a matter of fact, she’s already on her way! She reached Base Came, which is already over 17,000 feet in elevation, and is well on her way to the peak…only 11,000-ish feet to go!
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If you think her Everest adventure is on a whim, think again! Lucy has been training for this for years. She’s already climbed the highest peaks in all 50 states which was completed when they climbed Alaska’s Denali last summer.
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Actually, reaching the peak of Everest is only one step in her much larger goal: to be the youngest female ever to complete the Explorer’s Grand Slam. Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either, but it’s a challenge that extreme world explorers take to reach not only the highest peaks on each of the seven continents, but also the North and South Pole!
And young Lucy here is well on her way already!
Schmit explained:
She’s ascended Denali, Europe’s Mount Elbrus, Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro and, earlier this year, Aconcagua in South America. If she tops Mount Everest, the remaining sites will be Mount Vinson in Antarctica, Carstensz Pyramid north of Australia and both poles.
Oh…and she plans to check the rest of the boxes all before she goes to college in the Fall!! WHAT?!
Right now…it’s just her and a sherpa leading the way up Everest.
Pretty incredible stuff from a girl from Naperville.
Kids these days, huh?
Obviously, you need money to pursue these types of dreams. She has a GoFundMe page which you can donate to. Any money not used to fund her climbs will be used for her passion project of bringing access to clean water to everyone.
You can follow along with Lucy on her Instagram page.
I encourage you to read more about Lucy in Schmit’s Daily Herald article.