Samantha Larson: Climbing Everest was one big challenge

Samantha Larson became the youngest foreign woman to scale Mount Everest, according to the Nepalese Mountaineering Department. A 15-year-old Sherpa girl from Nepal was the youngest ever to climb the peak.

Larson said Everest was “much harder, longer and higher” than the other peaks she has tackled in the past.

“There were a lot of difficult moments. It was a long trip, it was hard in general,” she said. “It was one big challenge. I never gave up hope completely. Deep down I thought I would make it.”

“I was really happy to be there and I was happy to be going down too,” Larson said about her thoughts when she reached the 29,035-foot summit of Everest on May 17.

She said she was 12 when she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. Since then she has scaled the highest peaks on all seven continents, also called the “Seven Summits.”

Larson is set to start classes at Stanford University in the fall.

[From news story by Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press]