Future USC runner climbs Everest

Agreed. Some very strange sentiments being expressed on this thread. Money obviously helps, but everything she's accomplished presumably also required a great amount of work on her part. Lots of kids come from well off families. The vast majority of those kids don't do a fraction of what this girl has.

I can understand being dismissive of accomplishments that are completely bought and paid for. If a kid tries to sound worldly by bragging that they've been to 30 different countries when the reality is that they've just sat at resorts all over the world while being dragged along on lavish vacations with their rich parents, sure, I'll roll my eyes at the notion that their travel is any kind of accomplishment. But this girl is doing things that require effort and ambition and I don't really see it as remotely similar.

Nope, everything she has done is primarily accomplished by paying out. Everest is climbed by those that are obese, blind or missing a 1 or more legs. It's an expensive tourist destination filled with human excrement on the paths because they can't clean up, not an admirable achievement.

Who and how much did she pay to have a faster 5K PR than you?

The black group has a GoFundMe you can contribute to.

Very easy to get her PRs when she doesn't work because of rich daddy and can pay for expensive doctors and coaches to give you everything.

Sure, Everest with Sherpa support isn’t more impressive in fitness than a 20’ 5K, just that it always comes with an uncomfortably high probability of death for anyone if nature doesn’t cooperate as expected.

This particular kid has scaled the highest point in all 50 states before Everest, which indicates a level of will power and ambition that’s admirable in a teenager. Money was necessary but not sufficient for what she’s done.

Ummm, no. If I had daddy MoneyBags paying for all that travel, equipment, and not doing any work, I too would have climbed every peak out of boredom long ago. Climbing a mountain is not difficult like qualifying for the marathon in the Olympics. Climbing mountains is primarily about money.

Rich kids always have the more impressive resumes in the aggregate because they can do things like this. She’ll be a self promoter and try to make it as a lifestyle / influencer for a while as she probably doesn’t need a real job after graduation.

So much resentment directed towards a high school girl. And not all mountain climbing is primarily about money. K2 has only been climbed by 377 people and many have died trying.

Do you dislike all kids that are "rich"?

I’m sorry but when you are rich I am not impressed by you setting up a “clean water foundation”. I’m sure mommy and daddy and their influence and privilege had nothing to do with that happening. When a poor kid from the hood does something like that it is commendable. A rich girl, not so much.

What research are you referring to?

You know what would impress me? If she actually worked at McDonald's serving burgers and paid for all her own travel and equipment like a commoner out of that minimum wage. Let's see how many mountains she can climb on a McDonald's fast food worker budget and if she can afford the unlimited health insurance, standby helicopter and rescue teams that daddy MoneyBags pays for to tail her. As I said, climbing mountains is primarily about money.

what kind of twisted stupid logic is that? setting up something that is an enormous benefit to people in need when no one else is doing it is ALWAYS commendable. whether its a rich person doing it or a poor person doing it. are you trying to encourage rich people not to contribute to helping people in need? I dont think you understand how economics works. would you rather she spent her money on clothes and cars and selfish things for herself? what a truly ignorant and destructive statement to make. and it was her initiative - as a teenage girl - to do this. she didnt put her name on something her parents were running. she organized this from the ground floor up. spent months living in africa in remote villages with poor families in their homes not at some 5 star hotel. she got her hands dirty helping to do things like build wells. wasnt filing her nails and sunbathing while workers toiled away. is this about hating on rich people or hating on white people helping black people? because either way you are off base.

a lot of people here are making it out as if she is a Vanderbilt or something. her family is upper middle class, not billionaires. a lot of the money she used to do this came from donations from the thousands of people that follow her, from her church and from lots of sponsors who have been on board with her for a while as they have seen her doing important amazing things and want to be involved. Post Cereal alone gave her like $15,000 for this climb. And there were other companies as well including tons of mountaineering equipment companies. so the concept that she can do this stuff because she is sitting on a pile of endless family money isnt accurate at all. and anyway, I see the angry incels insisting its only about money continue to conveniently ignore my question about if it was so easy to accomplish the things shes accomplished by being rich than why arent 18 year old rich girls doing this all the time? why is she the first? the answer has more to do with the kind of person she is than how much money she has. but please continue pretending its otherwise to assuage your own feelings of inadequacy...

That kids parents are not upper middle class.
A guided hike up Everest is probably between $50-100,000 per person.
And she is the first 18 year old because nobody in that age group has usually that kind of money.

Her father Rodney Westlake is president of an investment firm.

No middle class that's for sure.

http://www.witterwestlake.com/

Looks like the Westlakes pour all the money in their adventures. Which I think is a good thing.

They live in the same modest house since 1999.