A COURAGEOUS student has been the first to climb five mountains in Central Asia as part of a team he got together at his former university.

Edward Lemon is just 21 years old but he has already climbed mountains in the Alps and in Peru and has now successfully completed five ascents in Kyrgyzstan, joined by three other brave students.

Edward lived with his parents in St Lawrence Drive, Eastcote, before moving to London to do a degree in war crimes at King's College London, when he was 18.

He has now moved to Scotland to do a postgraduate degree in Middle East and Central Asian Security Studies at the University of St Andrews.

He came up with the idea to head to Kyrgyzstan because the country is 80 per cent mountainous and very few people have climbed there.

He said: "The country has only been open to tourists since it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991 so there's lots of unclimbed mountains there.

"I wanted to do something adventurous to finish university and I wanted to be the first to do it. It probably doesn't appeal to everyone but I wanted a challenge and it was definitely that."

The former Bishop Ramsey CE School pupil had his first climbing experience when he was in 5 th Ruislip scouts and four years ago he climbed in Peru, where he achieved his Duke of Edinburgh's gold award, so he was well equipped for this trip.

He said: "The ascents weren't too difficult, but it just took lots of planning and we had to get the money together.

"We got a £1,000 grant from the Royal Geographical Society and we got some money from some various other places. We also got quite a lot of free kit but we had to put in about £1,500 of our own money each. It was about £8,000 altogether."

The trip lasted 24 days and the team returned in August, but there was a slight hitch at the start of the trip.

Edward said: "On the way there our driver dropped us in the wrong place. He could only speak Russian and I didn't know the Russian for 'don't drop us off here', so we had to walk 30km to our base with 200kgs of kit between us.

"It took us 10 days to walk there at an altitude where there was only about 60 per cent oxygen in the air so it was pretty intense."

The team climbed five mountains altogether, the highest being m, and Edward even named one of the peaks after his mum, Hilarie.

He said: "We had been told the weather there was very questionable so getting to the top of the mountains was the highlight. If a storm had blown in we wouldn't have been able to climb anything. Survival was our priority so we weren't going to take any stupid risks.

"Getting picked up at the end and being able to eat fresh fruit and vegetables after living on , porridge and vitamin tablets was the other highlight. I lost about 9kg while I was there.

"There were definitely hard moments during the trip when I just wanted to give up but we pushed ourselves to our limits. The last hour or so I was almost hallucinating, but if it was easy everyone would have done it."

Edward is not sure what challenge to set himself next, but he is thinking of returning to Kyrgyzstan. He said: "I also have ideas to go to Pakistan but because of the dodgy political situation there at the moment it might not be the best idea.

"We have discussed Everest but it's quite expensive and I wouldn't want to do it by the normal route because it's too busy.

"Unless I get a debilitating illness I will definitely keep it up. I suppose it's that sense of freedom that I love about it. I like being on control of my own fate and I just love being in the mountains."