Illinois Man Becomes Oldest American To Conquer Mt. Everest

Through the years, over 300 people have lost their lives climbing Mt. Everest, the world's highest peak, and there are still 100 or more bodies scattered about the different routes to the top.

You would think that just those numbers alone would be enough to dissuade most people, especially someone who's 75 years old, from doing much more than thinking about climbing Everest.

Then again, most people are not like Arthur Muir of Northbrook, Illinois.

I'm nearly 20 years younger than Mr. Muir, and it would take several large men with several large guns pointed at me to even get me to Everest Base Camp, which sits at 17,598 feet up the mountain. Mt. Everest itself tops out at 29,032 feet.

In doing my research, I couldn't find any mention of large men and/or large guns having anything whatsoever to do with Arthur Muir making his historic climb. If you can believe it, it appears as though Arthur actually wanted to do it.

Not only did he want to do it, he got it done a few days back. Arthur Muir is the oldest American to make it to the summit of Mt. Everest, and he's the 3rd oldest person to ever climb to the top. Japan's Yuichiro Miura holds the record as the oldest, at 80 years, 224 days, according to Oldest.org. Arthur Muir's recent feat tops American Bill Burke, who made the climb at 72 years of age.

I think one of the most impressive bits of background on Arthur Muir is that he took up mountaineering at the age of 68. And, this isn't his first attempt at taking on Everest. He tried once before in 2019, but a fall from a ladder injured his ankle and forced him to stop.

Fox 32 Chicago asked what it felt like to achieve a goal this big:

"You realize how big a mountain it is, how dangerous it is, how many things that could go wrong. Yeah, it makes you nervous, it makes you know some anxiety there and maybe little bit of scared," Muir told reporters in Kathmandu.

"I was just surprised when I actually got to there (the summit) but I was too tired to stand up, and in my summit pictures I am sitting down," he said.