LONDON, May 27 (UPI) -- A 16-year-old British boy became the youngest person to scale the "Seven Summits," finishing with a climb of Mount Everest, officials said.
George Atkinson of Surbiton in the London suburbs reached the summit of Everest, the world's highest mountain, Thursday. The Independent reported.
After his climb, Atkinson, who has reached the highest peak on each continent, returned to Camp 2, said Dave Pritt of Adventure Peaks, which organized the team for the climb.
Earlier on the same day, a Scottish university student, Geordie Stewart, 21, became the youngest Briton to climb the Seven Summits only to learn on the way down that his record had already been broken by Atkinson, The Herald of Glasgow reported.
Stewart had made an attempt to climb Everest last year but was foiled when members of his team became ill.
The Seven Summits became a goal for would-be record-breakers after Richard Bass, a U.S. businessman, climbed all of them, scaling Everest in 1985, and wrote a book about his adventures. The next year, the Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner revised the list, substituting the more challenging Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia for Australia's Mount Kosciuszko.
Other summits on the list include Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount McKinley in Alaska.
