King of the hill: Japanese climber breaks world record

Ken Noguchi has achieved the world's seven highest peaks, at 25 years of age   VIDEO CNN's May Lee profiles a record-setting young Japanese climber Windows Media 28K 80K

September 20, 1999
Web posted at: 2:53 p.m. HKT (0653 GMT)

By CNN correspondent May Lee

TOKYO (CNN) -- Climbing one of the world's highest mountains is an achievement that few can boast about...but even fewer have accomplished the grand slam of climbing...summiting the highest mountains on all seven continents.

Japanese climber Ken Noguchi did and broke a record too. At 25 years of age, he is the youngest climber to have conquered the world's seven highest peaks.

Noguchi's first successful summit was Europe's Mont Blanc. He was just 16.

"At the time I was desperate to achieve something, so I struggled to keep up with the team. I did it, although at times, I thought I might not make it to the top. I gained a lot of confidence because of that experience. as I was climbing down from Mont Blanc I was already thinking about Mt. Kilimanjaro," Noguchi said.

His thoughts of Kilimanjaro became reality just one year later...then came mountains in Australia, South America, North America, Antarctica...and last, but certainly not least, the mother of all mountains...Everest, which he successfully climbed in May after two previous attempts.

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