Lucy Westlake: The youngest American woman to summit Everest is an incoming Trojan

Lucy Westlake sought to achieve something only 4,000 people have ever accomplished: summiting Mount Everest. On May 12, Lucy, an incoming freshman majoring in public policy and distance runner for the USC Track & Field team, became the youngest American woman to complete the highest climb on Earth. 

Lucy, born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and residing in Naperville, Ill., began climbing at the age of seven after her family stumbled upon Black Mountain in Kentucky while traveling. After that first climb, Lucy fell in love with finding the highest mountains and climbing them. 

“It became me and my dad’s kind of thing or adventure,” said Lucy in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “We would go off and the mountain just kept getting bigger and bigger, and we kept getting more into it.” 

Rodney Westlake, Lucy’s dad, said that from the time she was three years old, the two of them would climb small mountains together around Michigan. After climbing for years, Rodney knew that the sport was growing on both of them. 

“Once we started to dip our toes in this climbing mountain world, it just sort of grew from there,” Rodney said. “It wasn’t anything anybody planned, certainly not what I planned.”

After years of climbing with her dad, Lucy decided to take on the Explorer’s Grand Slam as a greater goal of hers. The challenge dares participants to climb and reach the North Pole, the South Pole and all of the Seven Summits, one on each continent. Lucy decided that as a part of that challenge, she would climb Mount Everest — the highest mountain on Earth above sea level, standing at 29,053 feet between Nepal and Tibet — at the age of 18.

“[Everest] didn’t even come into our minds until Lucy and I summited Aconcagua [in South America] in January,” Rodney said. 

After receiving a $12,500 scholarship to climb Everest, Rodney saw the climb coming to fruition. 

Lucy graduated from high school a semester early to travel to Kenya and Uganda to work on water filtration projects. While there, she ran with Olympic runners from Kenya, which served as training for her to both join USC’s track team and to summit Everest. However, Lucy and her family weren’t sure the climb would happen, as the scholarship only covered a portion of the ascent.

“Most Western climbers use two Sherpas, which gives them the flexibility to have the climber carry very little weight,” said Rodney, referring to the potential price increase for the Everest climb associated with having two Sherpas, professional guides who navigate and help with gear during the climb. “We just knew Lucy was very strong, so she was just up there with one Sherpa.”

Lucy’s dream of climbing Everest became a reality in May and she enjoyed every second of the experience. 

“I was just so so excited. It was an absolutely amazing experience and definitely did not disappoint at all,” Lucy said. 

After 25 days of climbing up the mountain, Lucy made it to the top of Everest, which she said “felt surreal.” 

“I was like, ‘Wow, I did it,”’ Lucy said. “I was just really proud of myself and I was thinking about how proud my family and friends would be of me, especially my family, who invested so much in me.” 

When Lucy’s parents found out she reached the summit, they both burst into a dance of excitement, according to Rodney. 

“She did it alone, which is unique. Most people are a part of a team,” Rodney said. “When she summited, it was a relief, like complete and total joy.” 

As the youngest woman to climb Everest among other achievements — including being the youngest female to reach the summit of all 50 U.S. state highpoints — Lucy said she hopes to be an inspiration to aspiring climbers, especially women, since the sport remains male-dominated. Lucy is partnering with AWExpeditions, an organization that organizes mountaineering trips for women, to create a summit scholarship in her name that will support girls and young women who wish to start climbing.

“I’m a small, young girl, and I don’t see anyone else like me in the mountains,” Lucy said. “It’d be great to see more of that in the future, and I really hope that can happen.” 

Dan Iverson, Lucy’s high school track & field coach, describes her as a “tremendous interpersonal leader” — Lucy also engages in public and motivational speaking in her free time from mountaineering. Iverson said he’s proud to have coached Lucy, who he said possesses a level of talent that he hasn’t seen in a long time.

“I don’t know that many people are going to be able to follow in her shoes. I don’t think we’re going to have very many people that rush up Everest,” Iverson said. “The message that the rest of our team has gotten from her is that there’s not just one path that makes things right. You can do a lot of different things and can pursue passions in a bunch of different ways.”

Lucy said she’s excited to begin her college career as a Trojan in the fall and hopes to continue working toward completing the Explorer’s Grand Slam. With Antarctica, Australia and the North and South Poles left in the challenge for her, Lucy aims to complete the roster of peaks throughout this upcoming year while focusing on running and exploring how far she can go. But for now, Lucy is mainly set on her future at USC.

“I’m really most excited about the team atmosphere and the Trojan family,” Lucy said. “I got to meet some of the girls last year and they’re really sweet. I really liked them and coach [Jebreh] Harris, I’m really excited to work with him. He seems like an amazing coach and person. So that’s definitely what I’m most excited about.”