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?

[u/ThePriestofVaranasi]

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?

[u/Themodsarecuntz]

Without an actual pilot to train him Ethan dies on his first takeoff.

[u/WJLIII3 → u/Themodsarecuntz]

Somebody once learned to fly a helicopter with no one to train him, and that person lived before simulator trainers (I'm referring to the first ever helicopter test pilot, whoever he may have been, probably a matter of record). Ethan just has to be careful.

[u/Themodsarecuntz → u/WJLIII3]

Even that person had multiple pilot failures before them. They had people who designed it to instruct them. A helicopter that exists today only exists because of the people who have built it up from the time you are talking about. They are complex. I have flown drones and rc copters. Those are a challenge and your life isn't on the line.

There is no chance some regular guy is getting in a helicopter and learning to fly it with no assistance and becoming so good they can fly at the altitude of Everest.

[u/firestell → u/Themodsarecuntz]

Wasnt there some totally untrained guy who hijacked a plane and managed to fly it while only having MS flight simulator experience?

If he could get MS flight simulator on a computer in the early days + work out some generator to power it after the grid dies he could get a good bit of training in it.

Imo the hardest part is actually getting to Nepal before fuel goes bad all over. Once there he has virtually unlimited time to train on the mountain, only climbing a couple feet higher each time.

Canned food will last him indefinitely, and clean water is easy enough to get. Maybe he can get a drone up there and doensnt even need to climb it himself.

[u/TheRedditorSimon → u/WJLIII3]

Well, not exactly something a rando could accomplish. The first helicopter pilots (Aleksei Mikhailovich Cheryemukhin in the 1-EA in 1930 in the USSR; Igor Sikorsky in the VS-300 in 1939 in the US) were the designers of the machines they flew. They built the craft and had an innate understanding of the capabilities, the controls, and the limitations. The craft were also tethered at first because these were intelligent men flying experimental machines—the 1-EA being far more experimental as well as being a Soviet secret.

Ethan can't afford to crash. A simple broken bone isn't going to set correctly in this post-human world. A broken arm would be bad enough; a broken leg would basically make a long distance trek impossible, to say nothing of mountaineering

[u/DJinKC → u/Themodsarecuntz]

More likely on his first landing