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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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/TyrconnellFL Jul 09 '25

You’d be better off using a helicopter already in Nepal. You still need to get to Nepal, but stealing, navigating, and landing/beaching/crashing a boat, while risky, is probably less risky than trying to launch, navigate and land an airplane.

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u/usa2z Jul 09 '25

I'm thinking this is the objective answer.

Spend the remaining lifetime of the internet trying to learn to fly a helicopter, roadmap to a Pacific port, crash a container ship into the Asian coast, roadmap to Mt. Everest, and then hope the flight simulators you found in step one were realistic enough.

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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