7-year-old Becomes Youngest to Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro

A seven-year-old girl from Austin, Texas has become the youngest person to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Montannah Kenney completed the climb with her mom, Hollie, an endurance athlete, but the second-grader wanted to do it in honor of her late father, who passed away when she was only three.Montannah overheard her mom talking with friends about climbing the mountain and she told her mom she wanted to do it. 

.They initially thought they’d have to wait until the little girl was 10 because that’s the minimum age allowed to climb, but they found out other kids have gotten exceptions, so they decided to go for it and get to the top while she is still seven and could break the world record, set by an eight-year-old girl last year.To prepare for the climb, which is the equivalent of a six-day hike, the mom and daughter would take four-to-eight-hour hikes on weekends and shorter hikes during the school week. And mom says they spent a lot of time doing research and working with doctors that specialize in altitude before their amazing journey to make sure they were ready.

“As a parent what I learned most from this is, I would absolutely do everything in a parent’s power to allow a child to live up to a dream that would be empowering to them,” Hollie says. “Our philosophy in life is to be somebody and do amazing things. We may not climb a mountain again, but we won’t stop here.”

Source: Scary Mommy