Hongkonger, 19, seeks to be youngest person from city to climb Mount Everest
Trek just one stopover for ambitious outdoorsman who plans to scale seven highest continental summits plus North and South Poles within the year
If all goes to plan, 19-year-old Benjamin Chan will conquer Earth’s tallest mountain come early May and tick an item off his bucket list.
The Hongkonger is attempting to make history by becoming the city’s youngest person ever to scale Mount Everest – 8,848 metres in height and the highest above sea level in the world.
But the trek will be a mere stopover in a more ambitious goal: to become the youngest person in the world to reach the seven highest summits on all seven continents plus the North and South Poles, a feat known as the Explorers Grand Slam.
He aims to complete everything within the year.
“My sponsor told me this was the craziest, stupidest idea ever,” Chan told the Post from Kathmandu, as he prepared to journey to Nepal’s Lobuche, en route to Everest Base Camp, where he will prepare for the most nerve-racking climb of his life. “Then they told me they just had to support me.”
