A SIX-year-old Killarney schoolboy who set a new world record by becoming the youngest person ever to climb Mount Toubkal in Morocco – the highest mountain in North Africa – has won the special youth award at the annual Outsider Magazine Awards.
Adventure loving Joshua Davison scaled the 4,167m peak and making it even more challenging was the fact that it was undertaken in thick snow on a winter ascent.
Joshua, a senior infants pupil in St Oliver’s National School, Killarney, embarked on the climb with his mum, Lyndsey, and her partner who is an experienced mountaineer.
As revealed on KillarneyToday.com last year, they climbed for over two days, the first involving a testing four-hour trek to a mountain refuge where they spent the night before they reached the summit the following morning.
The reduced oxygen level, which had dropped to just 12.4 per cent at the summit of Toubkal, made it a gruelling task but Joshua and co remained determined and pushed on steadily to the summit.
The young Killarney boy took centre stage at the awards ceremony in The Sugar Club in Dublin on Wednesday night when he shared the stage with the other award winners, including adventurer Jason Black who successfully scaled the 8,611m K2 during 2018.
Joshua loves the mountains and he was already the youngest person to summit Ireland’s highest peak, Carrauntoohil, last year. This year he hopes to set another world record for being the youngest person to climb Kilimanjaro to raise funds for the Make A Wish Foundation.
Click on individual images for details
© KillarneyToday.com: We have changed the face of local news coverage
Advertise with Kerry’s best read news source: Over 300,000 views every month. Over 20,000 followers on Facebook. Call 087-2229761
