In 2003, with no climbing experience, Gauntlett and another school friend, James Hooper from Somerset, decided to climb Mount Everest. After training in Scotland, the French Alps, on Spantik in Pakistan and Ama Dablam in Nepal, on 17 May 2006 they reached the summit of Everest, Gauntlett becoming the youngest British climber to do so, a week after his 19th birthday.