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/marvin_bender]

I think the best bet would be a pilot and the assumtion that crashing his plane over the button means pushing it. So he would sacrifice himself to reset things.

Any type of solo adventure on a 8000 moutain, even in a very experienced guy, is close to imposibile. It's just incredibly dificult to get enough supplies up the mountain without help, that's why they use porters. And without weather prediction he has a shit chance of summiting. Remember there would be no static lines in place, so the climb would be much dificult than normally.

[u/skirpnasty → u/marvin_bender]

Better yet, grab one of the drones capable of flying that high. There is one they are testing to use for delivering supplies and retrieving trash, seems like the perfect candidate.

[u/PlatyNumb → u/marvin_bender]

I would like to add a little math to what you've said.

So, let's say this random person has about a 50% chance of being above the line of average for intelligence.

When coming success rates, the chances of making it up are currently 60% but a lot of that is due to the assistance of professionals and the knowledge they impart on you (or you research) before attempting the climb. This is also due to modern equipment (but you still need to know of the equipment. However, historically, the average is 30% or lower. Let's be generous and say they have a 30% chance.

30% of 50% is about 15%. But there's more.

The right age for everest, to have the best chance, is 30-40. which is crazy to me because ive thrown out my back sneezing... Anyway, 30-40 (no older or their chances drop dramatically.

Let's round it off as millennials are currently the age group with the best chances. Millenials make up about 22% of the American population..

Put this all together. This random selection doesn't have great odds at making it. I'd say way less than 3%.

This doesn't include crossing the ocean and getting to everest, but figuring that out is more than I want to do right now. Also, all the stats I used are still not perfect 1-to-1s on a RANDOM person because the 30-60% of successes aren't random. It's still ppl with training and physicality to meet the challenge. Again, though, it's not something I feel like figuring out right now. Just wanted to get a maximum likelihood. The actual likelihood is a lot lower.