A six-year-old Irish boy is believed to have set a remarkable world record after climbing the highest mountain in North Africa.
Joshua Davison is already the youngest person to scale the peak of Ireland’s highest mountain, Carrauntoohil.
Now he is thought to be the youngest ever person to climb Morocco’s 4,167m Mount Toubkal.
If that wasn’t impressive enough, the young Co Kerry climber managed to get through thick layers of snow to reach the top.
Joshua took on the challenge with his mother Lindsay and her partner Lucky Flynn. Flynn is an experienced mountaineer and helped them along their epic two day journey.
Lindsay said: “At over 3,000m we could already feel the altitude, but we set off for the summit at 7am the following morning.
“We wore crampons on our feet as most of the route to the summit was over a steep, icy slope of up to 40 degrees.”
The higher they climbed, the more difficult it got as the oxygen levels fell to just 12.4% by the time they reached the summit.
They all showed hugely impressive determination, especially when pushing on for the final six hour climb on the second day.
Lyndsey said: “We descended in six hours and I had to keep asking Joshua to slow down so I could keep up.”
They now hope that Joshua’s achievement will be recognised by the Guinness Book of Records and have submitted details to the adjudicators.
Joshua is now planning his next challenge and wants to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Written by Michael Kehoe @michaelcalling