Teenager sets out to realise dream of climbing world’s highest peaks

A 13-year-old boy has set out on a quest to become the youngest person to scale Mount Everest — and fulfil his dream of climbing the highest peaks of the world’s seven continents.

Jordan Romero, from California, is the latest teenage adventurer to stimulate an international debate about parental responsibility after a Dutch court’s decision last year to block a 13-year-old girl’s attempt to sail solo around the world .

Jordan has left Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, on the start of a five-day drive to base camp on the Chinese side of the 8,848 m (29,029 ft) mountain. He will make the attempt between May 15 and 25 with three Nepalese sherpas plus his father, Paul, who is a mountaineer and paramedic, and his stepmother, Karen Lundgren, an experienced mountaineer.

They all insist that he is fit and experienced enough for his first peak over 8,000m, and will turn back if it gets dangerous.

“This may be the first of many attempts,” Jordan said before leaving Kathmandu. “It could take a couple of years, but I am determined to do it ... I feel very prepared emotionally, and definitely physically.”

Nonetheless, his expedition is stirring a debate about whether there should be a minimum age for climbing the world’s highest mountains and whether his family is acting responsibly.

More than 4,000 people have climbed Everest since it was first scaled by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. The mountain has claimed at least 216 lives, including 15 in 1996, which inspired the book Into Thin Air. Many of those perished in the “death zone” above 8,000m, where the air contains only a third of the oxygen at sea level.

Some Everest guides say that Jordan will be safer than many older, less fit and less experienced climbers who pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to be taken up Everest.

Many others have reservations, partly because there has been little scientific research done into the effects of altitude on children.

In this month’s issue of Outside magazine, the editor, Bruce Barcott, wrote that he had asked several leading guides and climbers about the attempt and could not find one in favour.

Todd Burleson, of Alpine Ascents International, said: “What these kids are doing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But as soon as you start burying kids on Everest, it’s going to be a different story.”

His mother, Leigh Anne Drake, is supportive: “From the second he leaves my arms until he’s back, it’s like I can’t breathe but at the same time, I’m overjoyed.”