A Durango first-grader may have set a new record last week after scaling Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the Sierra Nevada and contiguous United States.
The California mountain stands at 14,505 feet, which was no problem for 6-year-old Orin Gartner, who topped Whitney’s peak last Saturday in about eight hours.
“They’re big,” is Orin’s reply to why he likes to climb. When he grows up, the Fort Lewis Elementary student wants to figure out a way he can climb “all the time.”
His father, Russ Gartner, said that Orin was 3 when he topped Mount Democrat, a fourteener in the Mosquito Range.
“It took a long time and we went at his pace, but he walked to the top,” Gartner said. “Then we walked him back down in the backpack while he took a nap.”