AT the age of four he tackled Ayers Rock; at 12 he ascended Mount Cook in New Zealand and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. This week, aged 13, Christopher Harris sets off to conquer the summit of Mount Elbrus in Russia, writes Paul Ham.

Early next year the young Australian, who is 14 in November, hopes to climb his way into the record books when he tries to become the youngest person to ascend Mount Everest.

“It’s just one of those things I want to do,” he said this weekend after completing a 60-mile training walk in Sydney. “Other kids play football or surf. I just like climbing.”

His ambition is be the youngest person to climb the Seven Summits — the highest peaks in each of the seven continents. Part of his preparation is the assault on Elbrus, at 18,510ft the highest peak in Europe.

Almost from birth, Christopher instinctively climbed anything taller than himself. Cheryl Harris, his 37-year-old mother, recalls watching in astonishment as he scaled the bars of his cot when he was a few months old. He became an accomplished rock climber at the age of five, when the family ran an indoor rock climbing centre near Sydney.

Now 5ft 4in, Christopher, who climbs with his father Richard, 38, recalls his past achievements with casual self-confidence. “I really like ice climbing. I enjoyed doing that on Mount Cook — and reaching the summit is the best bit of all,” he said. He celebrated that conquest at 12,315ft by taking photographs and “phoning my mum on the satellite phone”.

Kilimanjaro, although it was 19,331ft high, was “a bit dull”, he said. “I was doing a lot of walking, which was rather boring.”

Not every ascent has been a pushover, though. Father and son’s attempt on Mount Aconcagua (22,831ft), South America’s highest mountain, failed when bad weather closed in.

Everest remains the supreme challenge and the father and son team will be led by Russell Brice, a New Zealander who has climbed it more times than any other mountaineer. If Christopher succeeds he will have beaten a record set by Temba Tsheri, 15, a Nepali who climbed Everest in 2001 — losing five fingers to frostbite during the ascent.

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