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It's called Rambling in Britain, Bush Walking in Australia, Tramping in NZ and Hiking in America.

Whatever it's called, welcome to my blog which is simply about journeys and life..... It shares stories, tales and thoughts, in prose, verse, photo and video. WALK ON RAMBLER

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

FOREVER YOUNG

I have been anxiously following teenager Jessica Watson on her solo quest to be the youngest to sail around the world.  Frankly, I will be glad when she is safely home...she is 16 going on 17....It is a tribute to what young people can achieve and in this case a young woman.

I must admit though to being a bit skeptical about the whole thing but would be the first to say, in a true Aussie spirit ," good onya Jessie"

As humans we thrive on challenges...
a guy is paddling on the Brisbane River and thinks " I think I'd like to wheel my kyak from Brisbane and go to the western rivers and then down  down the Darling/Murray Rivers  to Adelaide." ...off he goes ( yeah I browsed his book in Dymocks today)      -good onya mate.
Then another guy breaks up with his girlfriend and thinks " maybe I'll go from Cairo to Capetown in whatever way I can "  subconscious thought " gee I think there is a book in this "   and he does- good onya  ( browsed his book too)

Well these are grown men or rather ..growing men with a questionably challenging quest. But this being the youngest to do something is a bit of a challenge for me to grasp.

Then I read today about a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD who wants to be the youngest to climb Everest.  I am a vicarious Everest Climber follower ( OK so I only made it to Everest  base camp...mmm not even a good name dropping line)  But really this is a very seriously challenging place...It is very unpredictable...many famous climbers have perished there etc etc.......Why would a thirteen year old be allowed to do this....and it is not even funny to quote you know " Because it's there "

I don't get it.  How young will the next child be to try for this record. Are we saying to our children " Have a go ya mug"... " everything's possible"

So good onya Jessie...be cheering that you make it to be the youngest..........
.oops sorry that young Abby from America is now sailing solo too and if she finishes she will be in the record books as the youngest ......
However, being young and records doesn't detract from very gutsy young people willing to rise to the challenge.......(.can't help myself here...maybe it needs more gutsy type parents to say "No. Not until you are older"..now there's a challenge.)

So here's the news story of the Thirteen year old. What do you think?  I am not the only one that has some reservations ......I keep a dubious open mind

Jordan Romero looks much like any other Californian teenager on a holiday of a lifetime as he poses for snaps in Tibet. But unlike every other 13-year-old in the world, Jordan is attempting to become the youngest ever person to climb Mount Everest.



"Team Jordan", led by his father, Paul, and Jordan's stepmother, Karen Lundgren, are currently driving to Everest base camp before scaling the 8,848m mountain.


Of more than 4,000 climbers to have reached the summit, those claiming records for the youngest include Ming Kipa, a 15-year-old Nepalese girl who climbed it in 2003, and Temba Tsheri, a 16-year-old who reached the top two years earlier after losing five fingers from frostbite during his first attempt.


Can a child make a responsible decision to undertake such a risky challenge? Last year a Dutch court placed Laura Dekker into state care to stop her attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.


So far, Romero has climbed five of the "seven summits" (each continent's highest peak): Kilimanjaro when he was 10, Elbrus in Russia, Aconcagua in Argentina, McKinley in Alaska and, last year, Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia. Then there is the fact that his father is a paramedic with a speciality in high-altitude physiology. "So he'll know that his child shouldn't be there," says David Hillebrandt, medical adviser to the British Mountaineering Council, who believes that 13 is too young to be exposed to such punishing altitudes.


"Is this harmful for 13-year-olds? No one really knows," says Hugh Montgomery, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at UCL. But Montgomery points to evidence of a "neurological deficit" caused by altitude: MRI scans showed brain volumes were smaller after climbing Everest. Anecdotally, climbers (including Montgomery, who has been above 8,000 metres) widely report amnesia, while older climbers in their 40s seem far better able to cope with altitude than youngsters.


While Romero has prepared physically by sleeping in a special tent that mimics high altitudes, Hillebrandt questions whether a 13-year-old can be mentally mature enough for such an ascent. "It is totally against the spirit of true mountaineering. This sounds like it's about mass marketing, money and it's verging on child abuse," he says. "In the old days, Everest was scaled only by people with years of experience, who could tie a knot with their eyes shut in a blizzard and had a good record of peaks they had retreated from and survived. Nowadays, people are effectively being winched up, using ropes that sherpas have put in for them. It will all be done for him [Romero]. He's a token passenger."

I think that says it all, you spoil sport you,
but GOOD ONYA...
someone has to say it.


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