Melbourne teenager, Bianca Alder, has become the youngest Australian to summit Mount Everest.
The 18-year-old reached the top at roughly 2:20am Nepal time, and shared the exciting news to social media roughly at 8am AEST on May 20.
“On the summit and climbing up, I felt amazing, but coming down is tough,” she wrote on Instagram. “I felt like I needed to be so much more cautious and it was a lot of work clipping around people.”
The decision to reach the summit in the dark was intentional. Her mother, Fiona Adler told ABC: “She is there well before the masses of people still on their way up… This is important for safety as it’s meant that she’s been able to climb at her pace and not get stuck and get cold in a long queue.”
Mount Everest – also referred to as Chomolungma in Tibet or Sagarmatha in Nepali – is the world’s tallest mountain at 8,849 metres high, located in Nepal’s Himalayas.
It takes an average two months for climbers to summit Mount Everest.
Bianca is in the midst of descending, and as of May 21, she reached Camp 2 which is roughly 6,500 metres altitude.
The remaining descent is fast but still considered hazardous given the glaciers. She will also need to navigate the Khumbu Icefall, where climbers must overcome deep crevasses and shifting ice.
Her ascent of Everest began on April 9, where her parents, Fiona and Paul Adler accompanied her to Base Camp. Her father then trekked to Camp 2 with Bianca, where his journey ended.
“It’s extremely dangerous up there and you feel very nervous for your life,” he confessed to the ABC from Camp 2.
“I was there myself in 2007, a long time ago and I know what it’s like — it’s very scary but for an 18-year-old it would be more daunting.”
The dangers of this climb isn’t unknown to Bianca. In 2025, the Year 12 student made her first attempt to reach the summit.
Unfortunately, dangerous weather conditions and the initial warning signs of frostbite forced her to turn around just 400 metres below the summit.
“I couldn’t see anything, there was snow blowing everywhere. It was an extremely tough decision, but I always want to choose life over a potential summit,” she confessed at the time.
“On the summit push Dad got sick and stayed at camp 2 whilst I went up. On the way down, he was still sick and I was exhausted. We both got diagnosed with HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema) and dehydration (which is normal for mountaineering).”
It was a devastating result for Bianca, who’s love for mountain climbing began during her childhood in the French Alps. But this defeat wasn’t just about pushing herself, it was also “about inspiring others to get outdoors and embrace discomfort.”
At such a young age, Bianca has an incredible record of mountain climbs. At 16 she became the youngest woman to summit Mount Manaslu (8,163 metres) and Mount Ama Dablam (6,812 metres) at 17 years old.
With the world’s tallest mountain already under her belt, we wonder what history-making trek she’ll endeavour on next.
