Nine year-old Tyler Armstrong better hope his parents get promoted at work if he wants to continue breaking mountain climbing records. The Armstrong family has gone slightly beyond their means in funding Tyler's climbs, which include Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (just under 20,000 feet) at the age of 8 and Argentina's Aconcagua Mountain (over 22,000 feet) on Christmas Eve. The latter expedition gave Tyler the distinction as the youngest climber ever to reach the mountain's summit, CBC News reported.

Tyler's father, an EMT in southern California (average salary for southern California: $38,000, according to indeed.com) has joined his son on all his climbs, not because he's a world class adrenaline junky, but because he believes in his son and his passion.

"Most people think we as parents are pushing Tyler to do this, when it's completely the opposite. I wouldn't climb it if I didn't have to, but my wife makes me do it to keep watch on him," Mr. Armstrong told CBC. "I was not a climber. He got me doing this because he wanted to, and I wanted to experience it with him," Armstrong said.

While Mr. Armstrong follows his son up the mountains, his wife, a pediatric neuropsychologist (average annual salary in Los Angeles: $50,000 to $90,000), stays home and anxiously awaits their return. The Armstrongs, who also have a second son who prefers soccer to Mt. Everest, will have to save some money if Tyler wants to hit his next peak, Mt McKinley in Alaska. He may have to start making his own money by the time he completes his life goal: to scale the highest peaks on all seven continents.

"My wife and I have just kind of scraped everything we can together and put off family vacations and everything else so that Tyler can do this," Mr. Armstrong said. "I've had to charge half of this on my credit card. But he did what he needed to do, so I felt I needed to support him."

Tyler had to gain a special exemption from the Argentinian government in order to complete the climb, according to CBC. Aconcagua requires its climbers to be at least 14 years old. Because Tyler had experience, was going for a record, had a cause behind him (muscular dystrophy), and agreed to take a safer route that didn't require any mountain climbing, according to CBC.

Still, the climb isn't without its dangers. Just 30 percent of all climbers make it to the top in a given year; over 100 have died from slippery cliffs and bitterly cold temperatures. Tyler and his father enlisted the help of a trained guide who'd scaled Mt. Everest twice, while both Armstrongs trained seriously for the climb, according to CBC.

"You can really see the world's atmosphere up there. All the clouds are under you, and it's really cold," Tyler told the Associated Press. "It doesn't look anything like a kid's drawing of a mountain. It's probably as big as a house at the summit, and then it's a sheer drop."