What has your teenager done recently?

That was the headline at the CBS Sportsline website a few minutes ago, when I went there to check on the scores of various baseball games. I was wondering why a report on the laziness of today's teenagers was on a sports website, and clicked on the link, only to learn that they were talking about 18 year old Samantha Larson, who has become the youngest individual to climb Mount Everest.

And of course I was surprised by the fact that the headline hadn't called out the fact that she was a female. Indeed, I'd seen headlines about this in the last couple of days and hadn't bothered to read them - I don't th ink any of them specified it was a girl/woman who'd done it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/19/eveningnews/main2828885.shtml

Which on one hand is good. The fact that someone who accomplishes something physical/adventurous/dangerous is no longer newsworthy, only what's been accomplished, and apparently the age, is. Equality at last?


.....and....wow.

Just checked out her blog: http://www.samanthalarson.com/

(Hate the design of the site, but that's by the way).

At age 13 she climbed Mt. Aconcagua, now with Everest out of the way she is the youngest person to have climbed the Seven Summits... I am soooo impressed. Of course she did all these climbs with her dad and climbing partners, nevertheless the courage and fitness required for all this.

Wow.