A 7-year-old from Texas has made history as the youngest girl to climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Hollie, a former professional triathlete, said the hike had been a long dream for the mother and daughter pair. They decided to actually do over the spring break in March after learning that an 8-year-old from Florida had completed the hike in July 2017.
"I knew she had spring break in March and we planned the entire trip in a month-and-a-half."
So the pair started preparing and training for the hike, which consisted of four-to-eight hour hikes on weekends and shorter hikes during a school week.
During the training hikes, the duo would practice spelling and math, listen to music, or invite friends to make the process more enjoyable, reported the news station.
"When she decided to do this, I knew what kind of training she needed to do and I didn’t want to rob her of her childhood over that month and a half," Hollie said.
"When we talked about the mountain being above the clouds, she immediately associated that with heaven and it resonated with her," Hollie explained.
"She loved that idea of being closer to her dad and asked me if she was going to be able to see him."
Hollie said during the six-day daunting trek it “snowed and rained every day” but Montannah did not complain.
"She never, ever questioned what she was doing," she told the news station. "Every day, I asked Montannah if this was harder or easier than she thought it would be, and every day she answered, 'Easier.'"
On the last day, Montannah looked up into the sky for her father. Her mother said, "Regardless, [the hike] put my daughter in the clouds closer to where her dad is and that just made her happy," she told Fox News.
Hollie said the hike was done to also raise awareness about eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy — a psychotherapy treatment designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. She set up a crowdsourcing page to raise funds for PTSD patients who cannot afford therapy and for futher research into EMDR therapy.
"We would love to be able to use this World Record attempt (and hopefully accomplishment) as a way to raise awareness to this awesome therapy for people struggling with PTSD to help cover some of their therapy costs," she wrote on her crowdsourcing page.
"This is the best way we can honor [Montannah's dad] and we know he would be proud," she added.