A SIX-YEAR-OLD has been hiking fells and mountains in the Lake District to raise money for his local hospice.
Oscar Burrow has raised £28,063 for Derian House, which is a children's hospice in Chorley.
His journey started after his teacher led a class on Sir Edmund Hillary.
Oscar's dad Matthew said: "He asked who is the youngest lad to have summited Mount Everest. We looked and found it was a 13-year-old. He said well that's easy - I'm only six!
"I explained to him you don't just walk up Everest."
However, to placate Oscar, Matthew agreed to take him up some mountains in the UK. This started with Ingleborough and Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales and then they decided to take it up a notch a month later by going up the Old Man of Coniston.
Hikers were surprised to see a six-year-old tackling a summit on a rainy day.
"When we came to the Lakes to do the Old Man of Coniston he said to people: 'I am practising to be the youngest person to climb Everest'," said his das.
Oscar was given so much attention on this hike that Matthew started to wonder if his son's love for mountaineering could be used for a good cause.
When he asked Oscar who they could raise money for he initially said the NHS because Matthew works in it.
READ MORE: Friends of the Lake District charity walk across Morecambe Bay
Matthew said that the NHS gets money from a lot of different things and it would be better targeted at a specific organisation. Oscar then suggested somewhere that cares for sick children and this gave Matthew the idea of a young person's hospice.
Since then Oscar has hiked Helvellyn, Skiddaw, Blencathra, Glyder Fawr, Snowdon and finally Scafell Pike on Thursday (April 6).
"I am super proud of him in a sense of what he has achieved," Matthew said. "The determination is not easy. He had to learn from experience when to keep on trying again."
This was in reference to an aborted attempt to climb Helvellyn due to poor conditions, which they managed to summit later that month.
Next Oscar is hoping to climb mountains in Scotland, with the final one being Ben Nevis on May 29. This is the seventieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary conquering Everest.
LINK TO THE JUST GIVING: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/oscar-burrow1
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