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A 21-YEAR-OLD student yesterday became the youngest Briton to climb Everest and simultaneously took the record for reaching the summits of the highest peaks on all seven continents.

Jake Meyer, who studies environmental science at Bristol University, climbed from the Tibetan side of Everest along the North Ridge.

With three companions, he reached the 29,000ft summit just before 1am British time after a 10-hour climb from top camp. As soon as he reached the summit he called his father, Hugh, in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, by satellite phone.

“We’ve done it, Dad. I am standing at the top. The weather is fantastic and I can see the whole world below me. This is simply the best,” he said.

Meyer, who began his conquest of the seven summits six years ago, said later yesterday: “If I had known how difficult it was going to be I probably would not have done it.

“The final two steps [cliffs] up to the top were technically extreme — climbing a near-sheer rock face with crampons, heavy packs and oxygen was hell. As the sun rose our goggles started to mist up as well.”

Meyer was accompanied to the top by Di Gilbert, from the Adventure Peaks climbing company, and their Nepalese guides Mingma Sherpa and Sirdar Anil Bhattarai. Near the summit they came across two bodies. One was a Latvian who had died a few days earlier.

“I had met him at advance base camp,” said Meyer. “It was very sobering to know that this was someone whom I had met and who was not going to be coming back down with us.”

The British record was previously held by Bear Grylls who climbed Everest aged 23 in 1998. “It’s a huge achievement. It was inevitable it would happen and, in many ways, I am surprised it’s taken so long,” he said.

Meyer, who has been climbing for six years, has many records to his name, including being the youngest person to climb Mount Vinson in Antarctica and the youngest to go solo up Aconcagua in Argentina, the tallest mountain in South America.

His conquest of Everest was not matched by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the polar explorer who was climbing the mountain to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation. Fiennes was forced to turn back from the summit because of concerns about his health.

Fiennes, who was fitted with a pacemaker after a heart attack in 2003, was climbing along the North Ridge and was just hours from the top when he gave up, complaining of chest pains. After talking to his four companions, he decided to abandon the ascent and made his way down to the lower base camp accompanied by a sherpa. He was due to fly back to Britain today.

The 61-year-old explorer was attempting to become the first person to traverse both polar icecaps and climb the world’s highest mountain.

Tom Briggs, a spokesman for Jagged Globe, an expedition company that was accompanying Fiennes, said: “It is a difficult decision to make and he is very disappointed but it is the right decision.

“At that kind of altitude with his past cardiac history he is not going to push himself to the max but is going to be cautious.”

Fiennes’s wife, Louise, who married the adventurer shortly before he departed for Everest, said members of the expedition e-mailed her just before their final assault on the summit complaining that they did not have enough oxygen.

“They ended up having to buy oxygen wherever they could get it from climbers coming down, which is awful,” she said. “Ran was struggling to breathe and finding it very tough. He was feeling very, very ill.”

She added: “He has promised me faithfully that he is not going to do high altitude again.”

This year, bad weather has meant only 60 of the 400 people attempting to climb Everest from the north of the mountain have reached the summit. Three climbers have lost their lives.

Correction

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