Kuwaiti mountaineer Yousef Al-Refai has become just the 24th person to climb each continent’s tallest volcano. Although the Volcanic Seven Summits do not enjoy the same notoriety as the Seven Summits, ascending to their seven calderas is an even rarer achievement.
Early reports suggested that the Kuwaiti was the youngest person to complete the circuit. However, reader James Stone, who maintains a list of all successful volcanic seven summiters, pointed out to ExplorersWeb that one of the very first summiters, Crina Popescu of Romania, was just 16 when she completed the list in 2011. Al-Refai is 24.
Al-Refai’s multicontinental project ended on December 22, 2021, atop Mount Sidley (4,285m), a dormant volcano in Antarctica’s Marie Byrd Land. It took the team seven hours to push from their camp at 3,000m to the crest of the caldera.
In a report to the Kuwait News Agency, Al-Refai stated that climbing Sidley was relatively easy and non-technical, “but the extreme cold is the factor of difficulty. We had to carry our luggage in the backpack, weighing 15kg, while the other part was in the sled, which weighed 25kg.”
The sun may still have been out at the time of his team’s ascent, but the temperature stood at -35˚C.
Aerial image of Mount Sidley, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Yousef Al-Refai’s volcanic journey
The Volcanic Seven Summits is a relatively young circuit, first accomplished by Italian Mario Trimeri and Romanian Crina Popescu in 2011.
Al-Refai began his own Volcanic Seven journey a few years after Timeri and Popescu’s completion of it, and nearly six years to the day before his final ascent in Antarctica. He logged each of the Volcanic Seven Summits in the following order:
- Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania – December 30, 2015
- Mount Elbrus, Russia – July 18, 2017
- Mount Giluwe, Papua New Guinea – July 21, 2018
- Pico de Orizaba, Mexico – January 6, 2019
- Mount Damavand, Iran – August 11, 2019
- Ojos del Salado, Argentina/Chile – January 15, 2020
- Mount Sidley, Marie Byrd Land – December 22, 2021
Since Al-Refai’s summit, two more have joined the still-rare list of those who have completed the circuit. Below, James Stone’s complete list of summiters:
