Byline: United States Keiran Southern Los Angeles

Nestled among sprawling juniper forests where eagles soar overhead, the Jabal Sawda peak has long been one of Saudi Arabia's crown jewels for mountaineers.

At 2,999m it was considered the kingdom's highest peak until twin mountaineers, Matthew and Eric Gilbertson, dethroned it in 2018, finding it to be shy by about three metres of the Jabal Ferwa summit.

For more than a decade the two scientists, 36, have set out to find new high points in countries around the world, rewriting the record books in places across the Middle East and west Africa. So far they have reached the summits of more than 100 mountains and identified new high points in Togo, Guinea-Bissau and Ivory Coast.

Matthew, a research scientist at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto, California, and...