Northbrook man becomes oldest American to summit Mount Everest
A 75-year-old retired attorney from Northbrook just became the oldest American to summit the world's tallest mountain.
Arthur Muir trained for about two years, he told ABC 7 Chicago, and conquering Mount Everest has been a goal of his since meeting Jim Whittaker, the first American to climb the mountain.
Muir had attempted to climb Everest in 2019 but injured his ankle and didn't make it to the top, according to an Associated Press report.
He said he was scared and anxious during his latest adventure.
"You realize how big a mountain it is, how dangerous it is, how many things that could go wrong," Muir told reporters in Kathmandu, Nepal, on May 30. "Yeah, it makes you nervous, it makes you know some anxiety there and maybe little bit of scared."
Muir began mountaineering at 68 with trips to South America and Alaska. He is married with three children and six grandchildren, the youngest of whom was born while he was still on the climbing trip.
Mount Everest, which is 8,850 meters tall - more than 29,000 feet - is in the Himalayan mountain range and straddles Nepal and Tibet.
The record was previously held by Bill Burke of California, who summitted Everest from the south route on the Nepal side in 2009 at age 67 and from the more challenging north route, on the Tibet side, at age 72 in 2014, according to his website, eightsummits.com.
The oldest person in the world to climb Everest was Japanese alpinist Yuichiro Miura at 80 in 2013.
• Daily Herald wire services contributed to this report.