Thursday, January 16, 2014

Junko Tabei: To Boldly Go Where No Woman Has Gone Before

" I can't understand why men make all this fuss about Everest…It's only a mountain," Junko Tabei is believed to have said after climbing right to the top of the Mount Everest.

Junko Tabei

But there was some serious fuss to be made about Tabei's Everest ascent. Only 36 people had stood on Mount Everest's summit before Tabei: all of them men. On 16 May 19975, defying stereotypes and battling prejudices, Tabei created history by becoming the first woman to stand on the peak of the world's highest mountain.
Born on 23 May 1939 in a small town in North Japan, Tabei was one of seven children. A very frail child, she suffered from weak lungs and was never very athletic. In fact, often being teased for being too "sickly", Tabei shunned sports.
When she was 10 years old, Tabei tagged along with a teacher on a school climbing trip to Mount Asahi (6,233 feet/1900 m) and Mount Chausu (6,365 feeet/ 1940 m) in Nasu. This outing was to change Tabei's life forever– she fell in love with climbing. It was a non-competitive sporting pursuit that suited her temperament. She could climb at her own pace, reaching the top even if she was slow, could quit, turn around and return another day and the mountain peak would still be hers to claim.
Since, at that time, mountaineering was not considered to be an appropriate occupation for women in Japan, Tabei went on to graduate with a degree in English literature from the Showa Women's University. Tabei became very serious about mountain climbing soon after graduation and took it up professionally. At the age of 30, she formed the Ladies Climbing Club (LCC) of Japan in 1969.
Only 4 feet and 9 inches tall, the diminutive Tabei had soon scaled most of the Japanese peaks, including Mount Fuji, and was looking for bigger mountains to climb. On 19 May 1970 she, along with members of her club, scaled Annapurna III and now they set their sights on Mount Everest.
The club applied to the Nepalese government for a permit in 1971, but the climbing schedule was full for the next four years. This was when Japan's Nihon Television and the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper came to her rescue. 1975 was declared the International Women's  Year by the United Nations, and to mark the occasion, the two organizations decided to sponsor an all-women expedition to Mount Everest. Tabei was one of the fifteen women chosen from hundreds of candidates.
After an intense training period, Tabei left her two-and-half-year-old daughter at home and headed to Kathmandu with the rest of the team. Making good progress, the all-women expedition, along with their Sherpa guides were spending time getting acclimatized at 20,669 feet (6,300m) when they were hit by terrible avalanche on 4 May. All climbers, their tents, climbing equipment and the Sherpas were buried under a thick blanket of snow. The Sherpa guides did a remarkable job of rescuing everyone. Tabei was pulled out from under the snow by the legs by her Sherpa Ang Tshering, who later accompanied her to the summit.
Tabei was covered in welts and bruises and her legs and back hurt. However, despite this, after making sure that everyone was alive and alright, Tabei, as deputy expedition leader, decided to continue further up the icy slopes of Everest. From here on, the climb was a challenge for a battered Tabei. But determined to get to the very top, Tabei soldiered on, often crawling on her hands and knees.
Twelve days later, 35-year-old Tabei's perseverance was justly rewarded, when she became the first woman to successfully summit Mount Everest. Had she and her team been delayed by the avalanche the record could easily have slipped through Tabei's fingers. For, just 11 days later, 37-year-old Phantog, a Tibetan member of the Second Chinese team to ascend Mount Everest, became the second woman to summit the mountain.

Tabei with another Everest legend, Reinhold Messner during 60th anniversary of the first successful ascent of Everest in Kathmandu, 2013

Fighting for the social equality of women in Japan, Tabei is believed to have said that climbing Everest was easier than overcoming discrimination in Japan. At that time, women were discouraged from indulging in non-family related pursuits. However, since Tabei's remarkable achievement, there have been several Japanese women climbers who have gone on to scale Everest, among other mountains. The list included Tamae Watanabe, who holds the record for being the oldest woman to have climbed Everest, not once but twice.
After conquering Everest, Tabei went on to become the first woman to complete  the Seven Summits when she scaled the 16,023 foot-high (4883 m) Carstensz Pyramid in 1992.
Tabei returns to the mountains time and again, because they teach her " a lot of things", making her realize, "how trival my personal problems are". Tabei likes to describe herself as "a free spirit of the mountains".
Now over 70, Tabei shows no signs of slowing down. Her dream is to climb the highest mountain in every country. With over 60 of them already scaled, she has just over two-thirds of the way still to go. And when she is not climbing mountains, Tabei spends time as the director of the Himalayan Adventure Trust of Japan, an organization dedicated to preserving mountain environments.

This story is included in Incredible Ascents To Everest published by Roli Books 



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