by Avery Hocutt
Through eight days of rain, snow, and exhaustion, 13-year-old Aedan Duvall learned that he was capable of more than he had ever imagined.
Snow crunched beneath weary boots as rock music drifted across Mount Kilimanjaro’s snow-covered ridge. After eight days of relentless rain, freezing temperatures, and gradually thinning air, 13-year-old Aedan Duvall was taking the final steps toward the summit — and a New Year’s Day goal his family had spent months preparing to achieve.
The journey had not been easy. His boots had frozen overnight. His rain gear, advertised as waterproof, had long since become drenched. At one point, he had seriously questioned whether he could continue. But now, on New Year’s Day 2026, he was less than a mile from the dormant volcano’s rim.
“It was a great feeling,” Aedan said. “to be able to say that you got to the top of the world’s tallest freestanding mountain.”
Standing 19,341 feet above sea level in Tanzania, Mount Kilimanjaro attracts climbers from around the world. Although thousands attempt the climb each year, youth climbers remain relatively uncommon, making Aedan’s achievement particularly remarkable.
The journey was not the Duvalls’ first overseas expedition. The year prior, they spent two months in South Africa. The year before that, they snorkeled and searched for dolphins in the Maldives. All three trips — South Africa, the Maldives, and Kilimanjaro — were organized by worldschooling company OTB Adventures. Worldschooling, a travel-based approach to homeschooling, combines travel with education, allowing students to learn through cultural immersion and real-world experiences.
When OTB Adventures announced plans for a Kilimanjaro expedition, the Duvalls thought it sounded like the perfect next adventure. For Aedan, one of the biggest draws wasn’t necessarily the mountain itself. His best friend, Jax, would be there. “The person who organized it, her son, Jax, is my best friend,” he said. “Just talking to him made me look forward to it, because I knew I’d be with him and some other friends.”
The family didn’t head to Tanzania unprepared. First, they researched, watching YouTube videos and reading firsthand accounts of those who had attempted the climb. Then, they traveled to Colorado, where they spent two weeks hiking in high altitudes and low temperatures. “It was December, so it was super cold there, and obviously, high-up,” Aedan said. “So, we figured that it was kind of the closest we could get to Kilimanjaro while still being in America.”
One 33-hour flight later (including layovers), the family stepped out onto Tanzania. Aedan noted that, even as they left the airport, he was not overly intimidated by the challenge. “We’ve hiked a lot,” he said. “I was thinking, it’s just a normal hike.”
That changed quickly.
As they drove towards their hotel, Kilimanjaro’s massive silhouette loomed into view, already visible from miles away. “I just looked at it and I was like, ‘Whoa,’” Aedan recalled. “When we were eating lunch, I was just looking at it and thinking, ‘This is going to be hard.’”
He was right.
The expedition included 16 climbers from six families representing the United States, England, Scotland, France, Monaco, and Australia. Seven of the climbers were students between the ages of 11 and 15.
The Duvalls expected relatively favorable weather. But instead, they encountered six consecutive days of rain. “LOTS of rain,” Aedan’s mother, Danielle Duvall, emphasized.
Each day followed a similar pattern. The group awoke at 6 a.m. Every person was given a bowl of hot water — their only bathing source. They quickly washed, ate breakfast, and packed their daily gear, which weighed no more than a recommended 15 kilograms (33 pounds). They also packed down their additional gear to be carried by hired porters to the next destination.
“We had 53 porters with our group. They weren’t optional,” Aedan said. “While we were hiking, they would just rush past us, carrying these massive bags on their heads. Then by the time we reached the next camp, they already had all the tents and everything set up.”
Each day’s hike began at 7:30 a.m. and lasted for about five hours. As the group climbed, the mountain landscape began to change dramatically.
At lower elevations, Kilimanjaro is blanketed by rainforest, complete with dense vegetation, tropical birds, and monkeys. Due to heavy rainfall, however, the climbers were more preoccupied with navigating though slippery mud. As they ascended, the landscape became rockier and more alpine, and they switched from short sleeves to long, snug thermals. Eventually, the trees disappeared altogether and the rain changed to sleet, hail, and snow.
It was this part of the trip that was undoubtedly the most difficult. Temperatures reached below freezing on several nights, making simple tasks unexpectedly challenging. “Since our stuff was wet, it would freeze,” Aedan said. “My shoes were frozen solid.”
Danielle recalled struggling with frozen boot laces and gloves that never fully dried. “The next morning, your hands are so cold,” she said. “You’re trying to adjust your laces, but you can’t because they’re frozen.”
In an effort to overcome the climate, the family resorted to creative solutions. They strung shoelaces across the tent as a makeshift clothesline. They used spare socks to warm their freezing hands. Sometimes, if clothing was just mildly wet, they placed it inside their sleeping bags, hoping their body heat would help it dry.
“But if it was too wet, it would make you cold, not the other way around,” Danielle said.
Food presented another challenge. Although the cooks worked tirelessly to prepare meals, ingredients and equipment were limited. “When you think about it, it’s like, my gosh, how much can you do? We’re climbing up a mountain for all these days,” Danielle said.
For Aedan, one factor made the experience much easier: his friends were there.
“Jax and I would just talk for hours,” he said. “And I kind of ignored everything outside of our conversations. I just kept looking at the ground, and kept walking, and the next thing I knew, I was at the camp.” Even after long days on the trail, all the young climbers remained close, often disappearing into camp to play games together until nightfall. “We hardly saw them,” Danielle joked. “Once we got into camp, they were gone,” added her husband, Ged Duvall, with a laugh.
The group’s game of choice? Uno. The games were so fun that at one point, even the cooks and porters became interested. “One day, about seven of them came in the tent,” Aedan said, “and they wanted to play Uno! So, we taught them how to play. It was so funny watching them. There was this one guy, we stacked a lot of Plus Two and Plus Fours, and he ended up getting like 15 cards…and he was just so upset. It was hilarious.” The game was just one of many moments that bridged linguistic and cultural differences. Though all the hikers hailed from different places, their shared experiences helped them forge strong bonds.
The mountain, however, remained relentless.
On one particularly difficult day, the group had reached 16,000 feet as part of an acclimatization hike. Aedan, like many of his fellow hikers, thought that he was approaching the day’s final endpoint. When he reached that point, however, he saw that the journey was by no means finished — about three more hours of hiking lay ahead. “It was snowing and raining, and there was a little hail…so to get there and see that it wasn’t over…that was tough,” he said. “I was just, like, I can’t do it anymore. I want to leave.”
He wasn’t alone.
“I think all the kids cried that day,” Danielle said. “There was at least one day where every kid cried,” Ged added, “and almost every adult.” Fortunately, the climbers rarely reached their breaking points at the same time. “We all had a day on Kili,” Danielle said. “Fortunately, they were not on the same day. So, we were able to support each other.”
On summit day, the group faced its greatest challenge yet. The final stretch began in darkness and stretched into a grueling 17-hour effort — up to the summit, back to camp, and back down the mountain once more. As the climb progressed, altitude sickness forced the climbers to separate into two groups. Aedan moved ahead with the faster climbers, while his parents remained behind. As Aedan’s group approached the final mile, an unexpected source of motivation appeared. Jax’s aunt pulled a portable speaker from her backpack and rock music began to echo across the mountainside. “We just started jamming out to the music,” Aedan recalled. “It was what we needed, that last push to the finish line.” A short time later, the group reached Uhuru Peak, the highest point on Kilimanjaro.
Aedan described the feeling of summiting as complicated. “Once I got up there…it felt amazing. Because I accomplished it. But I was also sad that my parents weren’t up there with me,” he said.
Ged, in the second group, had become seriously ill from the altitude. He and several others were forced to stop at Stella Point, a slightly lower summit on the crater rim. “I got sick about seven times that day,” he said. Still, he never considered asking Aedan to stay behind. “We knew the people he was with pretty well,” Ged said. “And I was happy he could do it, and that he wouldn’t have to be slowed down by us.”
For Danielle, summitting brought a different kind of emotional release. As she approached Stella Point, she saw a group member from Monaco, whom she had met only days earlier. “She put her arms up and I started sobbing, and she was sobbing, and she said, ‘You did it,’” Danielle recounted. “She even wrote to me afterwards, ‘I still remember holding your face in my hands.’ And she did, she did do that. And this was a woman who I had never met before. It was a truly remarkable thing.”
Ultimately, both Aedan and his parents agree that the climb was worth it. “No regrets. None. As hard as it was, and as many challenges as we faced, I do not regret it for one minute,” Danielle said. “It was such a cool experience, and so rewarding. It was a little bit like childbirth,” she added with a laugh.
Aiden, too, has no regrets — though he wouldn’t repeat the adventure. “I probably wouldn’t do Kilimanjaro again. But I would tell other kids who are considering it, to do it. It’s worth it. It may be hard, and emotional, but the feeling of accomplishment at the end is worth it,” he says. “And do it with friends if you can. If I didn’t have my friends with me, it would have been much harder.”
Although he isn’t keen to return to that particular mountain, Aiden hasn’t ruled out future adventures. He wants to hike to Everest Base Camp and is interested in space exploration. Overall, he says, the biggest lesson he learned on Kilimanjaro was simple: he is stronger than he once thought.
“It’s given me a better mindset. It feels like — okay, if I can do this, then I can do other things,” he says. “If there’s something that I think is hard coming my way, I just think, okay, well, I just did Kilimanjaro.”
