Chinese teen girl climbs to new heights

A 16-year-old girl from Changsha, Hunan province reached the summit of Mount Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, from the Nepal side on Monday, becoming the youngest Chinese female climber to achieve this feat, chinanews.com reported.

Xu Zhuoyuan left Changsha for Nepal on April 15 in a bid to conquer the summit. Xu started trekking from Lukla on April 21 and arrived at the Mount Qomolangma base camp seven days later. She then began to receive training in preparation for the Qomolangma climb.

On Sunday evening, she departed from the C4 camp, with an altitude of 7,950 meters, and after 10 hours of climbing, she made to the summit of Mount Qomolangma on Monday morning.

The girl's passion for climbing is influenced by her father Xu Jianglei, who was the first man from Hunan province to reach the summit of Mount Qomolangma. A first-year student at the High School Attached to Hunan Normal University, Xu Zhuoyuan is already an experienced climber.

She has climbed five mountains, all above 5,000 meters, across China at a young age. She revealed her dream of conquering Mount Qomolangma at the age of 12 and has finally succeeded after four years of hard work.

To summit Mount Qomolangma, she had been continuously taking high-intensity professional training. Last year, she successfully reached the top of Mount Muztagata, a 7,546-meter peak in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, laying a foundation for her Qomolangma challenge.

"Humans are very small in the natural world. We should be awed by nature," said Xu. She said she brought the gloves her father wore when he summited Mount Qomolangma as a witness to her dream accomplishment.

Xu said she hopes to continue mountaineering after her university graduation and wants to be able to complete the challenge of summiting the highest peak in each of the seven continents, and to be able to reach the North Pole and South Pole one day.