It’s been a busy time on Kilimanjaro. This morning Danish athlete Kristina Schou Madsen contacted us to point out that she has just smashed the record for the fastest climb-and-descent of Kilimanjaro by a woman. Her time of 6 hours, 52 minutes and 54 seconds using the Mweka Route (which is usually used as a descent-only route by people coming down from the summit).
The record has been verified by the International Skyrunning Federation and Kristina supplied GPS and Video evidence to prove her achievement.
The second record was bought to my attention by Eddie Frank of Tusker, one of the oldest trekking companies on Kilimanjaro. Eddie wrote to us to say that his company has just led a seven-year-old boy to the summit of Africa’s highest mountain. Cash Callahan, from Boulder Colorado, climbed with his ten-year-old brother and both his parents.
The question remains, however, as to whether Cash is actually the youngest person to climb Kilimanjaro. The record has been held since 2008 by Keats Boyd of Los Angeles, who was also seven.
The problem is, nobody has been able to contact Keats to find out exactly how old he was to the nearest day when he reached Uhuru Peak (the summit of Kilimanjaro). So for the moment we’ll just have to say that Cash is possibly the new record holder – and we’ll update our records page accordingly.
You can see a video of Cash’s climb by clicking on the link below.
Nice one Cash – that’s a fantastic achievement!