"his dizzying adventure: climbing Mt. Whitney"

At 7, Tyler Armstrong is missing his two front teeth and is getting ready to start second grade in a couple of weeks.

While some classmates will surely share the usual summer vacation tales, Tyler, the blond-haired Yorba Linda boy with a competitive streak, will tell of his dizzying adventure: climbing Mt. Whitney.

At 14,494 feet, it is the tallest mountain in the Lower 48. Tyler trekked to the summit late last month in a speedy seven hours and 50 minutes with his father, Kevin Armstrong.

“Tyler was pushing me up the mountain,” Armstrong. “He was going faster than I’d ever gone before. The fastest I’d ever done it was nine hours.”

While no official records are kept, Tyler is among the youngest to hike Mt. Whitney in a single day, his father said.

“He was just determined to get to the top of the mountain,” Armstrong said.

The young boy’s fascination started with a documentary about hiking that he watched with his father, who at 11 also climbed Mt. Whitney with his father.