4-Year-Old Girl Becomes Youngest Person Ever To Summit All 46 Peaks in the Adirondacks
A young girl from Upstate New York recently became the youngest person ever to summit all 46 High Peaks in the Adirondack Mountains when she summited Big Slide days before her fifth birthday.
The Adirondack Mountains provide some of New York state’s most beautiful hiking trails. Located near Lake Placid, the mountain range features 46 High Peaks, most of which are over 4,000 feet in elevation.
It has become a goal for many hikers across the country to join the “46ers club” by climbing to the summit of each of the High Peaks.
When Siobahn Carney-Nesbitt was pregnant with her now-5-year-old daughter, Maebh, she remembers having a dream that she would hike with her daughter once she was old enough.
Carney-Nesbitt is an avid hiker who has hiked the 46 High Peaks eight times already, according to WYNT, which largely contributed to little Maebh’s desire to join the 46ers club.
Maebh’s made the first summit last year when she was only three years old.
Just before she turned four we said, ‘Let’s go hike, you can hike with mommy — she just loved it,’” Carney-Nesbitt told “Good Morning America.” “It kind of became all of our goal as she continued to hike.”
Now, 13 months later, she has completed that goal and simultaneously became the youngest person to ever summit all 46 High Peaks two days before her late-July birthday; the record was previously held by two five-year-old twins in 1999.
What’s even more impressive is that her parents claim that they didn’t carry her once during her 13-month journey.
“People say ‘Did she climb all of that?’” Carney-Nesbitt told WYNT. “If you were with her on the mountain at any point. Anybody who passed us on the trail and saw her in action. You knew that she climbed every step of the way.”
Despite Maebh’s small size, she was able to effortlessly climb rocky terrain, which led her grandmother to compare her to a mountain goat.
Lee Nesbitt, her father, says watching her climb is “humbling.”
According to her mother, Maebh was beaming the moment she finally reached the top of Big Slide.
“It brings tears to my eyes, I’m so proud of her accomplishment, it started out as my little dream,” Carney-Nesbitt told “GMA.” “My dream became hers, and she did it.”
Maebh hopes that her accomplishment will encourage other children to go outside and hike. “It’s so much fun,” she said.
But for now, she has already set her sights on new goals for her hiking career: the 115 highest peaks in the northeast.
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