r/whowouldwin • u/ThePriestofVaranasi • Jul 09 '25

Challenge Every human on Earth vanishes, except for one random person in the US. A button is placed on the summit of Mount Everest that can be pressed to undo this change. Can humanity be restored?

Every human on Earth vanishes without a trace, except for one random survivor: Ethan from the United States. Moments after the disappearance, a mysterious device materializes before him, displaying a message:
"Humanity can be restored. To activate revival, you must press the button housed at the highest point on Earth—the summit of Mount Everest."

Ethan essentially has as much of a prep time as he wants to gather all the essentials like food, water, weapons, vehicles and everything else that has been suddenly abandoned. He can raid supermarkets, libraries, military depots, and pharmacies for supplies. Ethan can still die of old age so this prep time isn't unlimited.

Now, Ethan faces an impossible gauntlet:
He must travel to Nepal and ascend to the summit of Mount Everest without dying.

Can Ethan survive long enough to reach the button and restore humanity?

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876

u/reverze1901 Jul 09 '25

The difficulty of crossing the ocean safely is probably equal or greater than climbing Everest. Dude can't just hop on a boat and point west/east.

310

u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 09 '25

I mean, getting a ship going would be difficult but there are any number of oceanworthy vessels in existence that do most of the work for you

538

u/Kiyohara Jul 09 '25

"Most of the work" when we're talking about cross oceanic voyages is not a term I'd really appreciate to find out how much is left for me to do.

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u/redditisfacist3 Jul 09 '25

most of those require an experienced crew needing multiple people, the ship needs to be serviced by other professionals, and the supply chain to get all materials needed to that ship.

Also GPS probably wont work in this scenario completely unmanned. so good luck navigating off a map

149

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25

GPS would work for years with no human intervention.

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u/TheRedditorSimon Jul 09 '25

Maybe 7-25 years, as they will drift out of orbit due to gravity peturbations and there are no ground operations to provide station keeping updates.

Also, the power grid goes offline almost immediately. User grade solar cells degrade about 1%/yr.

1

u/DeadHeadDaddio Jul 11 '25

The fuel needed to power the ship will go bad within a few months.

7

u/TheRedditorSimon Jul 11 '25

Most any ship engine bigger than an outboard motor will be fueled by diesel, not gasoline. Diesel is far more tolerant for storage, especially if you have the stuff without biodiesels mixed in.

Additionally, if Ethan can find an older diesel motor, they're much more tolerant of diesel fuel variations.

Lastly, you can "polish" diesel to recondition it. Just drain out the stuff at the bottom and use filters and mild heating on the rest. Most boats have this set up on board, already.

1

u/TurnoverInfamous3705 Jul 14 '25

They would fall in 2 years without intervention.

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u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25

This is flagrantly incorrect.

GPS works by each satellite knowing the precise time and where it is going to be at that time. Given the precision needed, that information is computed on the ground and uploaded to satellites based on ground-based observations of them (e.g., laser & radar range-finding + models). Generally, those satellites only have a few weeks of forward-looking data on them at any time.

If humans aren't doing those uploads, then the system breaks down within a month.

2

u/Leninlover431 Jul 10 '25

My understanding was that GPS is calculated solely from time-of-flight of the signal, and its the various correction services that rely on the ground-based observations (SBAS). So the accuracy of the system will degrade, yet it will remain functional as long as the GPS sats remain in orbit with functional clocks.

5

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25

Flight time is important to the calculation, but you have to know where you're measuring from with high accuracy. That's the ephemeris data.

If you look at the GPS spec, it includes an error budget relative to how old the data (ephemeris and other) is on page A-12. Notice that after the ephemeris is only 15 days old that the error is over 200 meters.

2

u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 10 '25

to miss getting a boat to china you need a good deal more substantial drift than 200 meters

2

u/guyblade ​ Jul 11 '25

It is important to keep that 200m in context. This image from page A-7 of the doc shows that the degradation seems to get exponentially worse as time goes on.

That section also references this document. While I'm not certain that I'm interpreting the table properly, it seems like the table on page 135 of that document implies that a (block IIR or later) GPS satellite just won't have ephemeris data past 62 days after its last upload. If that's true, there would be a slow degradation, then a complete loss of function at ~2 months.

1

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 10 '25

You could also correct with your compass and heading.

30

u/LigerZeroSchneider ​ Jul 09 '25

Yeah there are no gps servers, the infrastructure is solely satellites.

23

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25

This is very, very wrong.

The whole way that GPS works is by having the satellites broadcast the current time and their current position with very high precision. The satellite can't know that information, on its own, so that information is computed on the ground via models and observations of the satellites from monitoring stations (e.g., radar or laser-based rangefinding). Once that information is computed, it is uploaded to the satellites. Usually, the models can only predict a few weeks into the future because of the precision needed and the general chaos of complex systems. Those machines on the ground are doing the real heavy lifting that makes the constellation functional.

20

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

...an actual, proper gps has its own actual antenna connecting to an actual sattelite constellation...?

Edit: Jesus christ people i was being sarcastic since the dude before me mentioned GPS servers...

18

u/StarKnight697 Jul 09 '25

…very often, yeah. How do you think people navigate with them in remote regions?

1

u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25

No, i was being sarcastic. The user i replied to was talking about GPS servers...

1

u/StarKnight697 Jul 09 '25

Ah, gotcha.

1

u/DelcoMan Jul 09 '25

wait until you learn about satellite phones.

1

u/AbsoluteSupes Jul 11 '25

And how about the engine for a vessel capable of crossing an ocean?

13

u/ObnoxiousOptimist Jul 10 '25

If GPS doesn’t work, I wouldn’t trust myself to find Mt Everest even if started in the center of Nepal.

3

u/redditisfacist3 Jul 10 '25

Oh id die for sure. Everest is a beast. Without a Sherpa you'd need to be an expert to get up alone. 100s have died that even had experience

1

u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

Stop by the local AAA office and raid the vending machine full of maps.

13

u/averageredditcuck Jul 09 '25

Easy, US to Canada to alaska to russia to nepal. What kind of doofus would cross the atlantic?

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u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Crossing the Bering Strait is the doofus way of doing it. There are no roads to the western coast of Alaska: you can get a little bit beyond Anchorage and then you’d have to go overland on foot, fly, or round the Alaskan Peninsula by boat. Not an easy task given weather and the shoals.

Assuming you make it to Russia you have the same problem: there’s no overland transport from the Russian Far East to… anywhere. Good luck hiking across hundreds of miles of inhospitable Siberian forest, the home of tigers, bears, and wolves.

4

u/averageredditcuck Jul 10 '25

I did no research and you clearly know more about this than I do, but I still think I like my odds better against that than crossing the Atlantic

9

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

I just know geography really well and boats almost as much, so I have faith most people could figure out a boat capable of the transatlantic crossing. It doesn’t have to be a huge cargo ship or anything: there are plenty of boats below 100’ that can make the trip, and they can be handled by one person who doesn’t care about scratching the paint a little.

You could do it, I’m sure, given time to prep and practice. I believe in you :)

1

u/The_Purple_Banner Jul 16 '25

This is a late comment but you could do a boat and still do the Bering strait route. Just follow the coast. ez pz

3

u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 10 '25

There are no roads to the western coast of Alaska

Why would this be a problem? Couldn't you just take an SUV that's particularly good at off-roading and just drive, not on roads? Is it all forest?

4

u/sharkMonstar ​ Jul 10 '25

do you think its just gonna be easy to trek any suv or whatever wont even have enough gas to make it

5

u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 10 '25

No, I don't think it would be easy. I think it might be easier than learning to operate a ship that can handle a transatlantic voyage. Not to mention learning naval navigation.

Gas is a good point, but you can always fill up some tanks and throw them in the back.

2

u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 15 '25

Piloting a ship isn't that hard with prep time and it has a lot fewer variables. You can find yachts that are made for 1 man and its a straight shot.

1

u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Nah, it’s impassable forest. That’s why those remote Alaskan towns are serviced by bush pilots in small airplanes.

1

u/dave3218 Jul 10 '25

There is no overland transport from the Russian far east to anywhere.

Was the Trans-Siberian railroad blown up or something?

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u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Was the Trans-Siberian railroad blown up or something?

You don't seem to realize just how absolutely fucking huge the Russian hinterlands are; the Trans-Siberian railroad is, at its closest, roughly 2,000 miles away from the hypothetical western landing point of anyone crossing the Bering Strait at its narrowest.

Reference this map showing the rail network. See the pointy grey bit at the very top right of the image? That's where you'd land boating from Alaska to Russia.

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u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

Assuming I am Ethan, I can fly a plane big enough to do the job.

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u/NarwhalOk95 Jul 13 '25

Ethan from the U.S.?

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u/GateGold3329 Jul 10 '25

Multiple teenagers have done it alone.

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u/arbitrageME Jul 10 '25

highly trained teenager with support staff and a satelite phone.

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u/Level9disaster Jul 10 '25

Also, he's on a short time limit, because fuels and lubricants actually degrade surprisingly quickly. Most vehicles , including ships, will be inoperable within 3 years, as chemical plants stop supplying those irreplaceable fluids.

Good luck learning to navigate the Atlantic with a sailboat, and then reaching Nepal without a car.

2

u/EveryAccount7729 Jul 13 '25

best bet may be training on aircraft flight sims and just take off and fly to near everest, and then jump out and crash the plane. Some huge military bird.

1

u/CannonGerbil Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Most of that servicing and supply chains are required to keep a ship going for years or possibly decades on end, if all you care about is getting it across the ocean in a one way trip then it doesn't really matter that you don't have the best tools and the maintenance isn't up to date.

A similar deal goes for the GPS, it'll be mostly functional for 5-7 years, and even after it starts degrading it'll still be mostly usable for 25 years ish before it becomes unusable for ship navigation, and if you haven't made it across the ocean in 25 years, I'm going to assume that you will never make it across.

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u/thatonezorofan Jul 10 '25

Not true, there was this guy on TikTok that crossed the entire pacific from the coast of California to New Zealand with a small sailboat and I took him around 50 days or so. The dude is called sailing songbird. However, that's very obviously a huge outlier. There's probably not many people on the planet that have the knowledge and experience to do a voyage that insane, but if there's anyone I would be willing to bet to complete this challenge, it would def be him. Here's his TikTok account for those who curious: https://www.tiktok.com/@sailing_songbird?_t=ZT-8xuwKmoB6wX&_r=1

1

u/ashlati Jul 10 '25

The GPS would work for most of his life time. Even if it didn‘t he‘d just have to straight east or west, depending on the ocean until he made landfall on the Eurasian landmass. Like Columbus in reverse

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u/Acrobatic-While3208 Jul 12 '25

We truly live in amazing times, for better or worse

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u/fearnodarkness1 Jul 10 '25

A lot of yachts are equipped with tons of technology that would make it "easier"

Self steering, GPS, radar, weather patterning etc.

If buddy can get to Miami marina im sure there's plenty of boats big enough to do it. Being able to operate it is another question entirely

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u/Kiyohara Jul 10 '25

So...

  1. How many people can operate it reliably enough for a cross oceanic voyage?

  2. How does an average person know it has enough supplies?

  3. What if something breaks mid way?

  4. Does it have enough fuel and can you tell if it is?

Very few luxury yachts are rated for trans-atlantic passage and even fewer are rated for trans-pacific passage. You might see a full tank of fuel, but unless you know how far it goes on a full tank it might run out mid way.

There's also issues with supplies. You might not have enough on board or you might not load it with enough if you're not familiar with how long it will take. Depending on size of ship you might not have enough space for food and water.

But s easy as they are to navigate, it's important to note that's using the standards of people who already know how to crew boats. I doubt your average person would know enough about yachts to activate all systems including weather radar and terrain radar, program a GPS destination, start the engines, pilot it out of dock and past other boats, and then set in on course. They are way more complicated than just getting in a self driving car and setting a destination.

And ships and boats break down all the damn time. Ask anyone who owns one. A boat is a hole you through money into. If you don't know ow to repair a system on a ship, if it breaks, it's done. That can mean electrical work, machine parts replacement, engine repair, or worse. What does the average person know about batteries and generators? Or fuel lines and fuel pumps? I wonder how many people off the street could just figure out how to replace a part on a ship engine.

This: https://focus-motoryachts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/boat-engine-room.jpg

That's the engine compartment of a small motor yacht. The kind not suitable for crossing the Atlantic. That's way more engine than I could maintain without classes or experience.

https://images.boatsgroup.com/resize/1/93/28/2023-azimut-azimut-grande-35m-power-9779328-20250512060033939-1_XLARGE.jpg

That's an engine room from a slightly larger model, and one that can probably cross the Atlantic safely. How would the average person even know what to look for if something in there breaks?

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u/fearnodarkness1 Jul 10 '25

1a) I've seen quite a few videos with 1 guy at the helm and a 2nd there for docking / spotting. The real issue would be auto-pilots reliability when he sleeps. 1b) Cross Atlantic is obviously SUPER difficult. So many factors, mainly weather, but a big enough boat could manage it. 2. They probably don't but if they acted quickly enough they could conceivably still use Google or just stock a fully fuelled boat with as much as they want considering there aren't weight issues since he's the only one on the boat. 3. You're fucked. 4. Yeah that is the tricky part. A sailing boat would 100% but you'd need to know how to sail. Something like this boat: Nordhavn 76 (trawler) has enough range, autopilot and mapping.

At the end of the day I agree with everything you're saying. It'll require a HUGE amount of luck to have nothing break, favourable weather, not running out of gas accidentally or even being able to get the boat out of the marina. Boats are fickle as all hell, I was just thinking if he could locate a newer model (less prone to breaking, maybe?), with a full tank and some reading the manual you could at least try.

Fun discussion anyways and you added a lot of really points about the sheer magnitude of navigating across the atlantic.

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u/Kiyohara Jul 10 '25

Yeah, and the thing is just one person is too small a group. One or two more people substantially increases the odds of making it across the Atlantic in a ship, even if they have few skills. If nothing else it means more people to learn specific duties onboard a ship from the library or owner's manuals.

And this is just to get across the Atlantic. Getting to Everest from whatever landfall they make un Europe is still a fuck of a journey, Landing in Portugal and debarking or trusting you know enough now to risk heading further along the coast to Everest makes for entirely different journeys with their own risks.

Crossing Europe won't be too difficult. You can get some bicycles basically anywhere (fuel will be stale by this point for the most part) and if you get lucky some riding horses and a few pack horses will make the journey incalculably easier. There's lots of houses to duck into during storms and cold weather and while fresh food is done and rotted away, there's plenty of preserved and canned foods to survive.

But... at some point you're going to have to cross some damn inhospitable terrain. Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are not exactly known for their climate. If you don't know how or where to find water, you could end up dying in the steppes and hills. And you better have enough food ready (or be a decent hunter) to get safely across.

And there's going to be a lot of rivers to cross. Some will be easy due to bridges, but depending on which river, there may be fewer than you'd think so get ready to find a ferry or spend a lot of fucking time looking for a way across. The Indus river alone has far fewer bridges than you'd think for example. Hell, the Rhine is going to be a big fucking barrier unless you stick to major highways.

And keep in mind any serious injury to a lone traveler is probably fatal. Broken arm or leg? You might not be able to continue your journey until it heals. And good luck collecting enough food to survive on a broken leg. More so if you break it in the wilderness dozens of miles from a town or city. A team would help a lot here too.

And THEN once you get to Everest... It's one of the deadliest mountains on earth, one of the tallest, and one of the hardest to climb. Better hope someone knows something about the process or you get some really good books on it.

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u/jedz_se Jul 09 '25

its not like you can learn to sail ocean crossing ship solo with youtube (which, btw, might be down, as there is noone to support it).

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u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 09 '25

Not just YouTube. Without a person keeping things active, you can expect basically ALL utilities like electricity, Internet, sewage to crap out within a week.

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u/pj1843 Jul 09 '25

That's not the main issue really. You can go raid the local library to figure a lot of that out and get real good at reading user manuals.

The real issues arise when you realize your on a time limit because the fuel everywhere will degrade quite and will begin to ruin stuff.

Then once you get on the boat and start your journey your going to realize that there is no one to communicate weather patterns to you, so unless you picked a yacht with a Doppler radar your sailing blind and likely could just get dead in a squal or major storm.

Basically there is a lot that can and will go wrong with this without the infrastructure in place to support you.

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u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 10 '25

All the books in the world can't replace months and years of experience that are typically required for a solo transoceanic trip. So yeah, you're on a time crunch, with A LOT more to do and learn and train and plan for than time allows.

And that's just to get to Nepal! We haven't even approached the issue of what to do once there. When is the last time, if EVER, someone handled a base to summit solo expedition?

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u/Throbbie-Williams Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

You can do Africa to Europe in under 9 miles of sailing

North America to Russia in 2.5 miles.

Edit: with both of those examples you also don't have to have any navigation skills at all, you can see your destination at all times if you leave in daylight

Unless you start in Australia/new Zealand or on tiny islands like Vanuatu almost anyone would be able to cope with the sailing!

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u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

You can go raid the local library to figure a lot of that out and get real good at reading user manuals.

Your local library has a book on trans Atlantic/Pacific solo voyages, extensive sea charts, extensive overland maps, extensive reading on how to prepare for that, how to prepare for a solo climb of Mt Everest. Books on mountain climbing to the skill level required to climb Mt. Everest? Books on the right meteorological conditions for your sea voyage? For the climb?

Anyone in the thread saying anything other than 'No, best bet is to hole up somewhere nice to wait out the rest of your days and leave the planet to all the other animals', is deluded.

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u/pj1843 Jul 11 '25

Yeah, there is a very good chance your local library has all those things. Libraries be dope AF like that. That being said you are right, the humans best bet is to find a nice comfy house and do their best to live a nice comfortable apocalypse.

Honestly though if they actually wanted to achieve the goal, their best bet is to try and launch an ICBM at everest and hope to hit the button with a missile. Not sure that possible, but definitely a higher likelihood than trying to solo cross the Atlantic then scale everest alone with no training or real prep.

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u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

Honestly though if they actually wanted to achieve the goal, their best bet is to try and launch an ICBM at everest and hope to hit the button with a missile. Not sure that possible, but definitely a higher likelihood than trying to solo cross the Atlantic then scale everest alone with no training or real prep.

Absolutely impossible I'm afraid. Even if they happen to work in a missile silo, it takes dozens of people to maintain, prepare for launch, target etc etc etc

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u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

How long could you be the last person on earth before you start getting visits from the Hatman?

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u/Throbbie-Williams Jul 13 '25

From Almost anywhere on earth that isn't australia/new Zealand you can get to Nepal with very little sailing.

2.5 miles if you start in North america, sub 9 miles from Africa, you can see your destination at all times so don't even need to think about navigation!

The only real challenge is ascending Everest, even this is easier than usual as he doesn't actually need to survive after pressing the button.

It's not a challenge I'd like to do but it's far from as insane as it sounds.

The mountain is the only real challenge

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u/gripsousvrai Jul 09 '25

book. good friend. Good book for sailing.

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u/heyvlad Jul 09 '25

Went far before I saw someone say the obvious answer.

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u/cockmanderkeen Jul 09 '25

I'm not sure transpacific boating for dummies is going to cut it.

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u/gripsousvrai Jul 10 '25

Atantic, mediterenane , red sea , india.

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u/JustARandomGuy_71 Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

Would the Suez Canal be operable?

I think the Panama Canal use a system of locks, that would not work without someone to open and close them, and probably would not work at all. Is the same true for Suez?

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u/gripsousvrai Jul 12 '25

but u dont care if i 's work or not, u trash ur boat and u take an other at the other side....

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u/RocketDog2001 Jul 16 '25

Suez is sea level.

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u/Critical-Werewolf-53 Jul 09 '25

😂 solo across the pacific 😂

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u/Nopants21 Jul 10 '25

No way do you find the right book to teach you through text on how to cross an ocean solo in the right boat (which you have to find), after finding the right supplies. All of this with no power grid, no internet, limited fuel. It's not even a sure thing that the person is located anywhere close to the coast. Most actual sailors today would not undertake this journey, but a lone person with a book is supposed too?

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u/gripsousvrai Jul 10 '25

i m responding to someone saying you tube down.
Same now i will say book better then internet.
Limited fuel if u are alone on earth????
Nope .

I m from coast , i m not saying will be easy.
Just step one go to book .
Because hey where better will u find?????
Map book are really priceless same now...
Not with just one book u will make it .
But anyway cross the atlantic with a good boat is nt so hard.
If u have no tempest.
And luck.
But after u have the himalaya ;) have fun for restart human;)

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u/Normal_Ad_2337 Jul 10 '25

The sewage will crap out., but Ethan will keep the crap going.

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u/Hoskuld Jul 10 '25

Which kills off the everest attempt as well. Good luck getting up there without modern weather services telling you when a good window will be

2

u/toolatealreadyfapped Jul 10 '25

The more this guy researches in what needs to be done, the more likely he's going to accept the fate of humanity and just try to enjoy the time remaining.

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u/Kalsir Jul 09 '25

Gotta google a lot of info real fast and write it down before the internet shuts down haha.

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u/TheMayorOfBismond Jul 09 '25

I'd have every printer in the library running day and night shitting out every Wikipedia article I could think of until the power finally cut out.

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u/KaIidin Jul 10 '25

We still have books, right?

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u/FriendlyDavez Jul 09 '25

Or you know... Go for the books

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u/TheMayorOfBismond Jul 09 '25

Those books are still going to be there once the power goes out.

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u/FriendlyDavez Jul 10 '25

My man.... You thought I meant to ... Print the books?

No.

I mean it's kind of silly to be hastily printing wikipedia at all while you already have a full library at your disposal. If it's a good one, it will have books with much better content than the surface level unverified wikipedia entries. Read some wikipedia entries on a subject you have deep expertise in and you'll know what I mean.

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u/ryohazuki224 Jul 09 '25

Books exist. One can teach themself how to sail a ship or how to fly a plane.

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u/theoriginalstarwars Jul 10 '25

There are things called libraries that have books. Learn to sail with small craft and work your way up to a larger one that can be singlehanded. I would personally go for a catamaran as there is 2 motors and you can power it with 1. Cross at the right time of year and remember that everest is usually submitted in mid/late may.

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u/fearnodarkness1 Jul 10 '25

Or find a yacht

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u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 10 '25

as fucking unreliable as LLMs can be you're probably literally best off getting a high end macbook and putting DeepSeek on it, but youd have to download that shit before everything collapsed

also ethan probably doesnt know how to do that anyway

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u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

How long does GPS stay functional without human oversight?

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u/rexus_mundi Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

About 7 years at most, fuel is required to maintain their orbits along with updates from the ground. They will become less effective over time with orbital drift, and degradation of parts

3

u/guyblade ​ Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Shorter than that. The satellites need their ephemeris information updated constantly by the ground, usually every few weeks. I'm not sure if it remains true with the Block III GPS satellites, but I heard the Block II GPS satellites described as "big tape recorders" once: you basically uploaded the timed list of what it was to broadcast and when and it simply dumped that back out. That's not an unreasonable model when most of the complex work--high precision prediction of their orbits--is being done on the ground anyway.

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u/FreeBricks4Nazis Jul 09 '25

As I understand it (not well) the GPS constellation of satellites is receiving regular calibration from the United States Air Force.  I have no idea how crucial this calibration is.  The accuracy of the system is probably going to degrade relatively quickly, but I don't know if that means your fix is going to be off by a couple of feet or a couple of miles. 

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u/ghotier Jul 09 '25

Calibration is important enough that GPS didn't work well enough for commercial use until General Relativity was figured into the calculations to account for the time dilation experienced due to Earth's gravity (which is VERY small)

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u/bigloser42 Jul 09 '25

It was general relativity, it was unencrypting the military channels that allowed extreme accuracy. But That only fixed the issue that didn’t let surveyors use it. It was good enough for almost anything else before that. It just took a while for it to get cheap enough to widespread adoption.

1

u/Normal_Ad_2337 Jul 10 '25

Relatively large though.

1

u/Leninlover431 Jul 10 '25

*special relativity

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u/ghotier Jul 10 '25

No, it's actually general relativity.

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u/Leninlover431 Jul 10 '25

I'm positive special relativity is a much larger factor than general reality in the context of sats

1

u/ghotier Jul 10 '25

Maybe, the math is certainly doable if you want to, but they solved the General Relativity problem last. Before they solved that problem, GPS was not effective enough for its current use. And my point was to compare the small, necessary correction of GR to the calibration corrections that need to be done. A larger correction is less persuasive with respect to the size of the calibration.

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u/brickmaster32000 Jul 09 '25

GPS can only give you your latitude and longitude. It doesn't give you a map. To do all the tracking people want to do you need all the infrastructure that isn't going to stay up that long.

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u/TheShadowKick Jul 09 '25

There are GPS devices where the maps are already loaded onto the device. You can power them with batteries so you don't really need infrastructure to keep them going (at least in the short term).

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u/brickmaster32000 Jul 09 '25

You certainly need infrastructure to find them. You guys seem to think that if something exists it will magically fly its way into Ethan's pockets.

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u/TheShadowKick Jul 09 '25

I mean, I bought a GPS device with maps loaded onto it at Best Buy. They aren't hard to find.

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u/arbitrageME Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Supposing they're ready and fueled and everything, you have to then sale it single-handed across the ocean and dock. Granted you could just crash it into a beach somewhere and take off from there but even doing that is very difficult.

I would give the challenge a better than 50/50 chance if all existing vehicles were fueled and had their keys available for Ethan.

Even then, just crossing the Pacific in a motor yacht with no weather alerts and a compass or celestial navigation if he can manage it, no internet just paper encyclopedias and maps would make it one hell of a trip. Crossing the Atlantic might actually be easier as long as he can get to the Suez canal and then steal a boat on the other side. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope is just a suicide mission.

Then when he gets to India, he could take some vehicles to supply base camp for himself assuming he can find the appropriate amount of oxygen. But then the final push across the ice seracs and crevasses is treacherous. He would have no guide to set the route and if he takes longer than one year to prepare then this year's guide ropes would be invalid.

On the plus side, he doesn't have to survive the trip back. It would be okay for him to make it up then promptly die on the spot

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u/Louis_lousta Jul 10 '25

The Suez has no locks, so you could possibly make it through, if it wasn't full of crashed sideways container ships whose crew had vanished.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '25

The USS Truman is in Virgina. That could make it over

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u/arbitrageME Jul 10 '25

the USS Truman is well-known for being easy to start up and operate single handed, with its crew of 1 and 4999 passengers, without even the need for crane and winch operators to do things like hoist anchors, release spring lines, pilot out of the harbor.

It also has a shallow and navigable draft, being able to cross most waterways with ease and totally won't get beached in a shallow part of the harbor

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u/Falsus ​ Jul 09 '25

And the average person do not know the rest of the parts that ''most'' leaves out.

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u/pj1843 Jul 09 '25

Yeah, not really. There are many vessels that can autopilot a plotted our course assuming you can plot out a course and actually engage the autopilot. If your not experienced with this type of equipment it isn't exactly simple.

Then you have to keep an eye on the weather, which won't be getting regular updates via radio or satellite data due to no people, so your going to have to know how to read the radar on this vessel and plot around storms.

Your also going to have to know how to maintain the vessel while at sea, because if one small thing goes wrong your dead.

As someone who's grown up around boats and has a decent amount of experience with this stuff I wouldn't even entertain the idea of a solo trans atlantic crossing even if I had my pick of vessel.

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u/UnicornWorldDominion Jul 10 '25

What about just the Bering straight to get to Russia then follow the coast down?

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u/arbitrageME Jul 10 '25

As someone who's grown up around boats and has a decent amount of experience with this stuff I wouldn't even entertain the idea of a solo trans atlantic

it's because you grew up around boats that you wouldn't. all these other people think it's like driving a car across a wide flat parking lot

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u/clearedmycookies ​ Jul 09 '25

Which is great if Ethan happens to know how to use them. Or else add on more time for Ethan to learn it, all the while more and more stuff will break without humans being there to maintain it as time goes on.

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u/ImInMyOwn Jul 10 '25

Not one that you can man solo.

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u/Mythosaurus Jul 09 '25

What kinds?

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u/Bartholomeuske Jul 10 '25

I'd take one of those gigantic cruise boats

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u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

but there are any number of oceanworthy vessels in existence that do most of the work for you

Name one. One ocean crossing capable vessel that requires no experience to safely undock, navigate out of a harbour, navigate the Pacific/Atlantic and safely dock/land somewhere. It's mindboggling that you got any upvotes at all for that.

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u/Z3r0sama2017 Jul 16 '25

Go watch some of those North Sea videos. If you don't know how to avoid the bad weather and the wild waves that come with it, the poor boats going to the seabed

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u/Steeze_Schralper6968 Jul 09 '25

Probably easier to learn to fly a plane at that point. I believe there are some helicopters that can fly higher than the peak of everest as well. The trick would be finding a runway to land on safely without ATC. I reckon it's possible, but it would take a lot of studying. It also depends how long until the fuel goes bad.

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u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

Learning to fuel, access, and fly aircraft with no training? When any error means smashing into the ground? Good luck to Ethan, he’ll need it.

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u/woutersikkema Jul 09 '25

Parachutes and just jumping out and hoping they work might do better than trying to land in many cases and jsut accepting the resulting explosion you might hear lelater 🤣

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u/Crazed_Chemist Jul 09 '25

Parachuting onto Everest is a death sentence

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u/bobbyBburgin Jul 10 '25

Not if that long line of climbers waiting to be at the top materialize after he hits the button im sure somebody packed a spare coat

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u/Crazed_Chemist Jul 10 '25

Parachuting up there with winds and stuff is the problem. Calling it and extremely technical jump is an understatement

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u/Steeze_Schralper6968 Jul 10 '25

I'll bring my skis 😎

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u/csfshrink Jul 09 '25

All planes are single use

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u/donny02 Jul 09 '25

does crashing the plane into the button count? that might help the odds.

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u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

Can he just drop a cruise missile on it? I’m starting to think that breaking into military bases and learning to hurl munitions at mountaintops is a better plan.

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u/hideous_coffee Jul 09 '25

I wonder if he can just fly a drone up there with a stick to push the button.

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u/Caleth Jul 09 '25

None of this is safe or easy, but honestly learning to fuel a chopper and fly it is probably less hard than trying to get a ship capable of sailing the pacific so you can get to Nepal to climb up an incredibly hazardous mountain to find a button.

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u/DutchTinCan Jul 09 '25

You do realize that if there is one thing that choppers really, positively, absolutely do not like doing, it is flying?

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u/Caleth Jul 09 '25

Do you realize that one thing humans really positively hate doing is surviving a solo trip up Everest? To the point it's never been done successfully?

Basically a helo is the only way Ethan is making this happen at all. Yes helicopters are basically man giving physics and god the middle finger with both hands, but it's still less dangerous than any alternative in this scenario.

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u/No_Constant_1026 Jul 09 '25

Multiple people have solo climbed Everest, starting with Rheinhold Messner

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u/Caleth Jul 09 '25

He had a base camp with people on Rongbuk Glacier. His pregnant girlfriend was there at the time. He had major logistical support for a month while prepping for his climb.

This situation is nothing like what he didn't and while it's impressive what Rheinhold did it wasn't 100% solo. He left a well stocked and supplied base camp ~halfway up the mountains. A place he stayed for a month getting used to the lower air content.

The person in this prompt has no one to support him anywhere. Not from the time he walked off whatever he uses to get there from the US until the time he touches the button.

Even setting aside the trans pacific flight solo, no one has 100% from the time the left the plateau until they came back down done a solo journey.

That's what I meant; sorry if I was not sufficiently pedantic. Everyone who has ever scaled Everest has had some level of major logistical support even if they did the final leg of the journey on their own.

The person in the prompt has to do 100% of everything every step of the way 100% alone all the time. No one has done that.

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u/No_Constant_1026 Jul 09 '25

Fair points.

If anyone at all could do this, Rheinhold in his prime could give it a good try. Ethan would be dead in the first storm.

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u/CrabAppleBapple Jul 11 '25

Far, far more people have solo'd Everest than landed a helicopter on it.

One person has landed on it and even then, it was a technicality, with a skid touching and the engine running. The guy who'd did it a) was an ex fighter pilot with decades of experience and b) had to test and practice extensively.

Unless that specific guy is the last person there's no chance. If they are, there's basically no chance as he's not getting there in a helicopter with not support.

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u/Caleth Jul 11 '25

Again no one has solo'd Everest 100% they typically had help and a base camp with people on the glacier. The one other guy talked about the first person to "solo" Everest and the story for Reinhold is essentially he did the last part of the trip up on his own after acclimating in a base camp half way up the mountain on a glacier.

All the people that have "solo'ed" Everest were top level climbers in great shape with training, the Prompt is for an average American.

The prompt is more or less a drawn out suicide for the guy either way. No one has soloed the mountain from the time they walk off the plateau to the time they hit the top. They have all had massive logisitical support for weeks or longer before doing the last half of the approach on their own.

Ethan from the prompt has none of that, which is why IMO even if it's a long shot getting a chopper and landing and scaling will be more likely than 100% solo attempting the mountain. He'll die in the first storm or pass out at the 60% mark alone.

He's also incredibly likely to just put the chopper into the mountain in a bad wind, but again if we're talking the average unhealthy American there's a 0% chance of scaling a mountain physically anyway.

The prompt it essentially unwinnable but there's an IMO incredibly slim chance of navigating up with a chopper compared to 0% climbing.

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u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

I don’t think any helicopters have trans-oceanic range, though. I’m skeptical of learning to leapfrog from fueling base to fueling base all the way to Everest.

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u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Certainly, no copters have that kind of range. Also, very, very few copters have that kind of height!

Conveniently, however, the vast majority of the helicopters on Earth that do have the ability to climb higher than Everest, are actually already very close to Mt. Everest, because the only reason humans need such things is to fly around the Himalayas.

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u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

Right, but the first hurdle is getting to the base of Mount Everest. Crossing an ocean is not easy. The Bering Strait is narrower but even getting up to sub-Arctic Alaska and making it across is not easy.

I don’t think a helicopter gets you to the mountain. Once you’re there, I agree that you’d probably die trying to manage a helicopter landing at the summit but you’d definitely die in a solo climb, so Nepalese helicopter it is.

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u/Sekh765 ​ Jul 10 '25

People thinking Helos can just ez mode fly to the top of Everest lol. Better off finding that crazy balloon that skydiver used to get there.

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u/WJLIII3 Jul 11 '25

Successfully getting a helicopter anywhere near the summit, much less landing it anywhere near, is hugely difficult and dangerous. The alternative, however, is climbing it, alone, in a world without sherpas. Call me crazy, I'm taking the chopper.

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u/Caleth Jul 09 '25

None that I know of, but you do that or you aren't making it. No one in the history of ever has made it up Everest without help. Well maybe something did back when they were the hymilaian hills instead of mountains, but no human has done it.

So scavenging from base to base or getting a plane you can learn to fly well enough to get to Nepal to then get a helo to fly you up to Everest is likely the only way this is happening.

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u/Volsnug Jul 09 '25

He has zero chance of making it with a helicopter, he’d want something like a C130 with extra fuel tanks since it can land on most runways

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u/Cold_Buy_2695 Jul 10 '25

The learning to fly would be the insanely hard part.

As someone who fueled 737s for the navy, that part is actually pretty damned easy and I'm fairly confident that any dumbass could figure it out after a couple hours of trial and error.

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u/Puzzled_End8664 Jul 09 '25

I'd definitely rather take my chances with a plane for sure, not so sure about a helicopter. You can work your way up incrementally from flight sims to flying short distances, and so on. Realistically I don't think a single person could operate a ship big enough that storms aren't much of a concern and you kind of have to learn on the fly without much chance to increment the difficulty level. I think there is much more chance for problems navigating the open ocean by boat vs by plane if only because the travel time is hours vs weeks or months.

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u/DrMoney Jul 09 '25

Its a longer route, but they could probably make it across the Bearing Straight with some of the boats anchored on the Alaskan side. (not sure how rough it is there either)

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u/Steeze_Schralper6968 Jul 09 '25

Very. It's very rough.

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u/ghotier Jul 09 '25

Sure. They just have to get to Alaska alone and then traverse Siberia, the Gobi Desert, and the Himalaya's alone.

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u/poincares_cook Jul 09 '25

Not really, you can sail a boat down the Russian, then Chinese etc shores. Weathering bad weather in seaside towns and villages. Once you cross the bearing sea there's a good number of shore towns even in Kamchatka.

Thing is you don't have much time, batteries and diesel will start going bad, and you have no way to refine.

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u/nanoray60 Jul 09 '25

Not a big boat, no. Bigger ships are safer in so many ways but impossible for a single person to do alone.

His best bet is to drive all the way to Alaska, get a boat, then boat to Russia and land ASAP. Russia and Alaska are the two closest points of land that goes from the U.S. to Asia. Then he’d drive to Nepal.

Once there he’d practice on the local mountains(some of the highest on earth), working his way up until he feels ready for Everest. If he can somehow make it via my route(doubtful), successfully train(doubtful), then he most certainly dies climbing up everest.

But I don’t see a better route for him. Crossing the full ocean is daunting. Driving to Alaska, and stealing a boat as close to Russia as possible is much more doable.

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u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Sure he could. The boat doesn't need to be run correctly or land safely. He can grab any sufficiently large vessel out of any commercial harbor, and turn on it's gps, and aim for China. Be there in a couple weeks. Just crash into the shore, you're not gonna hurt anybody. Honestly, you could do it easily with a simple passenger yacht, but given the possibility of changing weather conditions, by all means, take a cargo tanker or cruise liner, something closer to unsinkable.

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u/boomfruit Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

Do you, a layperson, have confidence in your ability to run all the systems on a fucking cargo tanker? To deal with maintenance and emergency troubleshooting in the middle of severe weather?

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u/TruculentTurtIe Jul 10 '25

Do you mean to tell me that you don't just pop on the boat and press the big green button labeled "CHINA" and off ya go??

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u/WJLIII3 Jul 10 '25

Nope- let it break. I am banking on it being able to survive one journey without me doing any of that. If that's not viable, trek to Brazil, steal one there, and take it the much shorter way to Morocco, car from there.

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u/boomfruit Jul 10 '25

I am banking on it being able to survive one journey without me doing any of that.

It just doesn't work that way. There isn't a journey without any of that. Maintenance and engine/electrical/hydraulic/other systems troubleshooting isn't just an emergency thing. It's constant and regular.

Personally, as someone who professionally works on boats (tugboats, not cargo ships), I wouldn't think of doing this. I'd try to go the overland route through Alaska and Russia as much as I could, or possibly take smaller boats along the coast; it would be way slower, but I would basically never want to be out of sight of land.

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u/Ludoban Jul 09 '25

You are so far removed from reality if you think a cargo tanker or cruise liner can be operated by one single person, like what???

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u/LaDiiablo Jul 10 '25

My dude think ships are like GTA. Just press triangle and you already driving it. I doubt one person can even take off with cargo tanker alone.

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u/thelefthandN7 Jul 09 '25

He can very much hop on a ship at a few US west coast harbors and just point it toward China. There are plenty of west coast ports that have container ships waiting just outside the harbor that were in the process of being topped up by bunker barges. Set the GPS to China, and just let it go. No complicated navigation, no significant maintenance. Will he be crashing the ship when he arrives? Yes. Will that matter? Nope. This is going to be a one way trip.

And if he can't find a west coast ship for the job, an east coast ship will work just the same, just with a longer drive time on the opposite side of the ocean. He can depart in November or December and avoid the monsoons and hurricanes as well.

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u/Remember_Megaton Jul 09 '25

Assuming he can figure out if it has enough fuel, how to even get it started, navigate out of the port, keep the engines operating properly, and knows how to bring any and all necessary supplies that will last the full trip while also not getting any moderate to significant injury or disease.

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u/playmaker1209 Jul 09 '25

Can a container ship even be operated by 1 person. Probably not, but he’d have a greater chance with a decent sized yacht.

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u/WJLIII3 Jul 09 '25

For certain definitions of operated, sure. It can be piloted by one person- it can be aimed, and its throttle can be engaged, by one person, so it will move, in a direction chosen by the person. Many, many things will rapidly become fucked up about the boat, without the many technicians it should have, but it will go in a direction.

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u/rasco41 Jul 09 '25

Yes a container ship can be operated by 1 person.

It cannot be maintained by one person.

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u/DAJones109 Jul 09 '25

And more fun!

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u/thelefthandN7 Jul 09 '25

If it's at a bunker barge, it's already out of the port, and it certainly has the fuel because that's the whole point of stopping at a bunker barge. Starting the engines and maintaining them to the standard of finishing one trip is actually pretty easy because everything is documented in 3 places with the understanding that the crew may not be familiar with the particular ship they've been assigned to (30 days on, 30 days off, and you may get dumped on a new ship by the company who doesn't really care). Supplies would mostly be food, and much of that will already be on the ship since it's one guy, not the usual crew. But he can stop at any and every grocery store on the way to the harbor and stock up since he's not obligated to pay for anything. Now, supplies for the mountain climb... that's a bit more difficult, but all of that should be at the various base camps scattered around everest and the major landing point for climbers.

Avoiding injury is just normal day to day life. How often does the average person get a life threatening injury while completely alone? How often do they get a disease without being around other humans? The answer to both of those is that it's *very* infrequent. Most injuries are sprains and strains and sports related injuries. A moderate or severe injury is going to be very unlikely for someone completely solo. Most diseases that don't involve contact with another human are pretty easy to avoid by properly washing your hands, cooking your food, drinking clean water, and wearing bug spray. All things he would have the ability to do.

All in all, getting to everest isn't that challenging. The challenge is at least 90% everest itself.

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u/_alexandermartin Jul 10 '25

You can't possibly think this.

Yes commercial ships have everything documented in manuals, how to start engines, run generators, do maintenance, navigate, etc. There are merchant mariners who train for this and yes ships are designed so rotating crews can figure it out. This is actually right, but it immediately breaks down bc this isn't a trained mariner taking off is your avg Joe from Kansas.

All of it still highly specialized knowledge. Reading the manual doesn't equal being able to do it. A ship’s main engine isn’t like starting your everyday car lmao. There are checks, auxiliary engines, pumps, oil preheating, fuel systems, cooling systems, ballast handling. Usually you have an engineer crew and an officer crew to get it moving safely. The idea that one person alone with no training could get it done is laughable.

Maybe in a years time of reading manuals and using trial and error, going through enough ships he can brute force one to start by sheer luck. It still doesn't get any easier from there. Once going, engines/generators need watchstanding, oil checks, fuel switching, leaks handled, filters swapped. One person can’t possibly do this while also sleeping, steering, navigating, and keeping watch.

Humanity is absolutely dead.

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u/ChicagoDash Jul 09 '25

Probably more important than how to start the ship is figuring out how to stop it. Crashing a container ship into a port seems pretty risky.

It is sort of like flying. Landing is more difficult than taking off.

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u/cheesesprite Jul 09 '25

I doubt it. If he goes to the back of the ship and crashes front first he'll have a huge crumple zone. Obviously he'll try to reduce his speed as much as possible first. Or he could hop in a lifeboat once he nears shore

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u/thelefthandN7 Jul 09 '25

Ramming ships on shore is a thing that happens all the time. It's how they get ships into breaker yards. It's pretty safe. The ship *will not* be decelerating fast enough to cause injury, it's just too heavy.

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u/thelefthandN7 Jul 09 '25

Ramming a really big ship up on shore isn't dangerous to the people on the ship. See also: Ship Breaking. Point the ship at a beach, give it the beans, wait till it comes to a stop. For best results, wait until high tide.

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u/Volsnug Jul 09 '25

That’s not how ships work lmao

Unless he’s already a sailor, I doubt he’d even manage to get a large ship underway

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u/soulslinger16 Jul 09 '25

This is really good. It’s like I’m there!

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u/monkeysfighting Jul 10 '25

He could take a year to learn how to fly a 747 and then another year to learn how to use a wingsuit and parachute with oxygen supply to get to the top of the mountain might be a one-way trip though

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u/ghotier Jul 09 '25

I actually think finding everest is even harder than crossing the ocean alone.

In theory, you can cross the ocean in a sailboat. Success might be unlikely but you could do it with reasonable prep and reading. You wouldn't necessarily know where you've landed when you get there.

Now imagine being on the same landmass as everest and not knowing exactly where and trying to get to Everest. I literally cannot imagine it.

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u/IEatGirlFarts Jul 09 '25

...maps? Signs? Landmarks?

Really? How did people manage 50 years ago? 100?

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u/Saharan Jul 09 '25

It's the biggest thing around, how hard could it be? /s

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u/ghotier Jul 09 '25

I think people are thinking that non-ironically.

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u/I_ride_hondas Jul 09 '25

Why would you need to cross the entire ocean? Sail from Alaska to Russia ( 55 miles )   Travel by land the rest of the way 

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u/TheAwesomePenguin106 Jul 09 '25

I know absolutely nothing about boats and navigation, so my question is serious/not ironic: why can't he just hop on a boat and point west/east, assuming the boat doesn't break during the trip?

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u/upstart-crow Jul 10 '25

Cross at Alaska???

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u/StoicSociopath Jul 10 '25

GPS still exists

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u/schumachiavelli Jul 10 '25

Crossing the Atlantic is certainly easier than summiting Everest; literal children have done it many times over. There are plenty of boats that are both manageable by one person and capable of crossing the Atlantic. Practice on a few test ships, stock up the one worth taking, time it for late spring/early summer, leave from New England, point east, and you can make Europe in two weeks or less.

Bit of a pain to then get from Western Europe to Nepal, but people have done that by car/truck/bike.

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u/jmsecc Jul 10 '25

This was my thought. There’s enough super yachts in existence that essentially pilot themselves.

Once I figure out if it’s best to go from the west or the east coast of the U.S. - which I’m assuming it would be the west coast. I go find one, preferably in the Pacific Northwest.

I spend some time learning how to pilot them and how far I can get with full tanks. I wait for late spring/early summer. I load extra fuel and use a gps to cross the North Pacific, preferably staying as close to land as possible- I’m probably going to need to refuel. I circle around to say Hong Kong, then get the biggest RV I can, toeing a pickup truck or jeep and cross by land.

My vehicles (the yacht and the RV will allow me to keep my phone/GPS charged. Assuming that the GPS grid will stay active for 7 years, I think I can do it without resorting to navigating by paper maps - not a strength of mine, but I could if I needed to, definitely a contingency I would plan for.

Fueling is going to be a challenge cause the power grid ain’t gonna last long. But gas stations exist and I will figure out how to transfer fuel before going anywhere remote enough to make this a critical failure.

I think GETTING there will be a challenge - but not insurmountable.

Soloing Everest? That’s going to be the part that makes this a doomsday scenario. It’s never been done without serious logistics support from a large team. I have to do it from scratch all alone. I’d certainly try cause what do I have to lose? But if most likely fail as spectacularly as everyone else. Just getting the supplies to a base camp alone would be virtually. Impossible.

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u/MoeraBirds Jul 10 '25

Lots of sailors could do it, probably a thousand times more than people who could solo climb Everest. Heaps of people have solo sailed the Atlantic.

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u/King_Tamino Jul 10 '25

He also has as much time to train as he wants. Including flight train on e.g. military bases and their equipment. But yeah, even if that all works out all it needs is some illness and that's it

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u/xboexz Jul 10 '25

The safest and smartest thing he house do is go through the Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia. That way he can travel across 50 miles of ocean in a small boat and not have to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Then grab a car and travel to Nepal from Russia

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u/zer0saurus Jul 10 '25

I'm crossing over the Bering strait. Much better odds

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u/Jimz2018 Jul 10 '25

Naw he can just commandeer a 747 and fly over

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u/Optimal-Map612 Jul 11 '25

If you headed up through Alaska it wouldn't be too difficult 

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u/usa2z Jul 09 '25

In theory, the way you would cross an ocean solo would be to walk to Alaska and swim/raft across the Bering Straight. Unless you lives in the region though, it adds the problem of navigating to the Bering Straight on top of Navigating to Nepal... also of not getting eaten by polar bears on either stage of the journey.

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u/Torgo73 Jul 09 '25

Swim?!?

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u/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

Nothing like a bracing 51 mile swim in low 50s Fahrenheit water from sparsely inhabited Cape Prince of Wales to sparsely inhabited Chukotka!

You could set out from Nome instead, but you’d lengthen your trip by a good hundred miles, and even getting to Nome by land means trekking through wilderness.

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u/usa2z Jul 09 '25

It actually has been done before, at least between the Diomede islands... but yeah, if a normal person is doing this they'd be better off trying to make a raft... or better yet steal a cargo ship further south like I now see they're talking about elsewhere.

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u/Torgo73 Jul 09 '25

I’m not trying to be flippant, but why are we choosing between “make a raft” and “cargo ship”?? Rafts made by a single person are an extremely bad sea-going choice in the goddamn Caribbean, let alone the Arctic Ocean. I don’t know much about cargo ships, but I assume they ain’t exactly point n steer. I feel like there are in-between boat choices, is all I’m saying.

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u/PixelWulfe Jul 09 '25

I was under the impression the area in and around the Bering Straight is some of the roughest and dangerous water on the planet

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u/HelloKitty36911 Jul 09 '25

Absolutely on the side of greater.

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