Seven-Year-Old Sets Record by Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro
Seven-year-old Montannah Kenney has become the youngest girl to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Climbing Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa at 5,895 meters, was Montannah's project during a school break in March. The native Texan was accompanied by her mother, Hollie Kenney.
"My sister asked me if I was interested in climbing Kilimanjaro with her," Hollie Kenney recalled. "We started the planning phase, but she had backed out of it. Then, I had been asking a couple of friends if they were interested in going. Montannah chimed in and said, 'I would go with you, Mommy.'"
Montannah and her mother, who is an endurance athlete, trained for the adventure.
"Fortunately, in Austin, Texas, we've got a couple of big hills that we could go up and down to get our muscles ready for the big challenge," Kenney said.
It took them six days to reach the peak. The most challenging part of the trip came on the night they were preparing to reach the summit with their guide.
"We really didn't get any sleep," Kenney recalled. "And for a 7-year-old, that's very challenging because she just wanted to lay down and go to sleep. Then, to take seven hours and a half to reach the summit. When we finally get there, we have to come back down, which was another three hours. We had lunch, and then another five and a half hours going down even further. So, it was 17 hours total that we were hiking."
In addition to the accomplishment of setting a world record, the trip also introduced Montannah to new cultures.
"Not only did we try different foods when we were on the mountain, but we went on two safaris afterward," Kenney said. "We went to Zanzibar. We stopped in one of the towns to see how people in Tanzania live. We met several families, and that was really exciting. Kids that lived in the town absolutely loved meeting my daughter. That was a lot of fun."
