This 4-Year-Old Just Climbed New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-Foot Peaks

Most four-year-olds stay busy with art projects, cartoons, and games on the playground. Lydia Pearson bags peaks.

Lydia recently summited all 48 of New Hampshire’s mountains over 4,000 feet in elevation—a challenge that saw her walk over 300 miles and climb 100,000 total vertical feet.

On June 16th, she trudged to the top of 6,288-foot Mt. Washington, her final summit and the state’s highest peak. According to the Appalachian Mountain Club, she’s the youngest person to do so, completing the journey at four years and four months old. When Lydia reached the top of Mount Washington alongside her mom, Whitney Pearson, she was greeted by friends and family holding a celebratory sign.

While hiking down the trail, Lydia had a question for her mom. “She said, ‘can we hike Washington again tomorrow,'” Whitney Pearson told Outside. 

Lydia’s 4,000ers ascents started shortly after she was born in 2020, when Whitney began hiking with Lydia in a child carrier. In fact, Lydia reached the top of all 48 of New Hampshire’s highest peaks no fewer than four times each before she ever climbed one herself.

Whitney is a veteran ultrarunner who has summited New Hampshire’s 4,000ers seven times each. She took Lydia up her first mountain just two months after giving birth—she completed all 48 with Lydia in tow before her daughter was four months old.

But that was just the beginning for the Pearsons. Whitney and her husband, Eric, searched for more peaks to to climb with their infant. They carried Lydia up all 67 of New England’s 4,000-foot mountains, and then they took her up the 100 highest peaks in the region. When Whitney submitted her logbook to the Appalachian Mountain Club, she also requested recognition for her infant daughter. But the AMC said Lydia’s summits didn’t count because she was an infant resting in a carrier, and not a hiker using her own two feet.

“I was like, ‘Okay, as soon as she’s able to walk, she can do them!’” Whitney told Outside.

Whitney continued her ascents of the peaks with Lydia in tow. She’d complete the peaks every season for an entire year with Lydia in a carrier—yep, she climbed all 48 in the fall, before repeating the challenge in winter, spring, and summer. Her longest outing with Lydia was a 45-mile variation on the Pemi Loop, which she completed in a single day.

Finally, after several seasons in the carrier, Lydia started walking up the peaks when she was two years old. “It was instinct for her to get out of the pack,” Whitney said. “The outdoors is all she knows.”

Lydia walked up her first her first peak—4,081-foot Cannon Mountain—when she was three years old, on June 29, 2023. She spent the next year hiking all the 4,000-footers, accompanied by her mother, and finished on June 16, 2024, in under a year.

The outdoor world is full of astonishingly young kids grabbing records, from Axel Hamilton, who climbed all 58 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks at age six, to Tyler Armstrong, who summited 22,837-foot Aconcagua at nine. In 2022, an eight-year-old boy named Sam “Adventure” Baker became the youngest person to climb the 3,000-foot El Capitan.

With cases of children accomplishing arduous, technically demanding physical feats, it’s easy to wonder how much of this is done under the kid’s own volition, and how much is thrust upon them by their parents. But Whitney says this couldn’t be further from the truth with Lydia. “When we were nearing the end of her 4,000ers, she started getting sad, telling me, ‘Mom, I’m not going to have any mountains left to hike!’”

The White Mountains of New Hampshire are achievable for a young child, Whitney asserts. Unlike El Capitan or the Colorado fourteeners, which can require technical rock climbing, the New Hampshire peaks have established trails, and several mountains can be linked together in a single hike.

Choosing the fastest possible routes, some hikers could finish the 4,000ers with only 230 miles of walking and 80,000 feet of elevation gain. For little Lydia, the challenge entailed 308 miles and 105,000 feet of gain. This is because her mother sometimes mapped out longer alternate routes to tackle peaks over multiple days, because Lydia hikes slower than the average adult. “We chose the most friendly trails,” Whitney said. “It’s still really hard because she’s so small. She takes a lot of tiny steps.” On average, Lydia walks about 1.5 miles per hour. Her longest trail days entail around 12.5 miles of hiking. “Any route over 12 miles, we’d split up the trail days into an overnight trip,” Whitney said.

Whitney said that hiking with her daughter has led her to appreciate nature more than she ever has before. “Lydia notices and reacts to all the different plants, mushrooms, and trees,” she said. “I see so much more, and see it through her eyes.”

Lydia is also adamant about picking up litter and trash as she hikes. “I didn’t really push this on her, or even make an effort to teach her these patterns of behavior,” Whitney said. “I think it’s instinct, from being carried in the pack for all those hikes as a baby.”

Whitney said Lydia also looks forward to hiking because she gets to eat “trail food,” that she wouldn’t regularly be allowed to eat at home, like cookies, chocolate, and candy. She is also fond of singing songs on the trail, and is frequently joined on her hikes by two imaginary friends, Lake and Reedy. “Listening to the crazy stories she tells about these friends, and how their hike is going, is always fun,” Whitney said. Whitney also attributes her daughter’s high level of energy to her success. Unlike most children her age, Lydia doesn’t nap. “This kid hasn’t napped since she was six months old,” she said.

The duo didn’t encounter any sketchy days during their hikes, save for a few instances when they were caught in freak rainstorms. But even those bad days had silver linings. “Lydia has this purple unicorn poncho, and even though it’s raining, the rain gives her the ability to wear that, and it becomes the best part of the trip for her. She’s like, ‘Cool! I get to wear my unicorn poncho!’” Whitney said her daughter, above all, feeds off her energy. “If I stay calm and positive, she stays calm and positive. That’s our parenting style. My husband and I don’t freak out for her, we let her decide if something is a big deal on her own.”

Whitney wants to publicize her daughter’s accomplishment not because it matters to Lydia now—in fact, she said her daughter doesn’t really have an idea of what she’s done—but because it may be a big deal to her down the road. “She has no real idea of the magnitude of what she accomplished, Whitney said. “I’m hoping to put it out there a little bit so when she’s older, she can look back on this and be proud.”

Lydia may be the youngest, but she’s not the only four-year-old to ascend all 48 of the peaks. In fact, multiple children under five have done it. Another girl, Scarlett Lesnewski, finished all the peaks aged four and 11 months in 2022. A boy, Gordon Simpson, hiked them all at age six, and walked with Lydia for support on one of her later summits.

Lydia may not hold the record long. Her infant sister, Demi, has already begun riding in their mother’s backpack.