7-Year-Old Becomes Youngest Ever To Climb Yosmite's Legendary El Capitan

While most seven-year-olds spend their birthday eating cake and climbing playgrounds, but not for Joey Danger. Yeah, Danger quite literally in his middle name. The seven-year-old became the youngest person to ever climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, the largest granite cliff in the world, nearly three times the height of the Eiffel Tower. Joey broke his own brother Sam's record, who also climbed El Capitan at eight years old in 2022. As if the climb itself wasn't enough, Joey and his family endured wind speeds approaching 35 miles per hour at one point. The Evermore family are no strangers to climbs like this though. It's a family tradition for them at this point. So let's bring in the father and son duo, Joey Danger Evermore and his father Joe Evermore, joining us now here on Fox Weather. Guys, thank you so much. I am already such a big fan. Joey, what was it like when you ended up breaking this record? What did you feel like when you got to the summit, when you got to the top? We were super hungry. We didn't have much water. But weren't you excited too? Yeah. Tell me about that. Tell me about how excited you are. Hey, Joey, I feel you. I feel I get hungry too, especially with all that exercise. That's a big, big mountain to climb. That's pretty incredible. Now, I got to know, is there a little bit of rivalry going on with you and your brother since you broke his record? Yeah. What did your brother say? That's why he wanted to do it last fall. So our plan was to take Joey up El Capitan when he was eight, just like his brothers. But when he saw Sylvan do it last fall from the meadow with a scope, he started talking about it constantly. And so we decided to take him up a little early once he was ready. That's amazing. What a birthday gift to have. And dad, this had to be a little nerve wracking to let your seven-year-old do this. Talk to me about the climb from your perspective. Yeah. This is an all-rope ascent. We're doing it as safe and as easy as possible. But it still took over six days of hanging from our anchors or hanging from your fingers. You're pulling on ascenders and working your way up this huge wall, living on the wall, living on a portal edge, which is like a tent that hangs on the wall. And you have to carry up all your own water. And so resources are super precious up there. And there's just a lot of great experiences. Think about it like camping, but way harder. Extreme camping, it looks like. That's for sure. And I heard you guys were also dealing with some intense winds. Those gusts were approaching 35 miles per hour at one point. What was that like as you were trying to climb? Well, the hardest part about that was the portal edge. Our portal edge, all night, just kept shaking and bouncing me. And I slept down on the end of it to try to keep my weight, the heaviest thing on it, because I thought it could fold up. And that was a ride. Somehow, Joey slept through all of that, but I was up all night just hanging on for dear life as our little cot was just shaking in the wind. He can handle anything. He slept right through it. I love it. And, you know, you guys, you asked the boys to kind of climb something every day, and that's kind of a rule in your guys' house. Can you break that down for me? Can you talk a little bit about that? And when did you guys start kind of teaching the kids how to climb? Yeah. So everyone of our kids climbs something every day. And Joey's been working hard, training for stuff. We have members, different kinds of memberships at three different rock gyms. And so we're always climbing something indoor or outdoor or in our backyard. And we have a little climbing wall in our garage. And so we're always working, you know, developing them. We trade screen time for pull-ups. And so if you want more screen time, you need to do more pull-ups. And that seems to work too. Hey, I love it. That is so fun, being able to get out into the outdoors and have those amazing experiences as a family. What a fun thing to do. And congratulations, Joey. That is very, very impressive. Again, the father and son duo, the family of climbers, Joey Danger Evermore and father Joe Evermore. Thanks again for joining us here on Fox Weather. All right. See ya. Bye.