Honouring High Places

by Junko Tabei

  March 19

  In two chartered planes, we flew 200 kilometres west from Kathmandu to Pokhara, another of Nepal’s major cities, and in proximity to three of the ten highest summits in the world. No sooner had the plane taken off than Miyazaki announced, “Mountains on the right side.” As if on cue, the team sirdar, Girmi, yelled for the Sherpas who sat on the right to move aside so we could see the spectacular scene. Ganesh Himal and the three peaks of the Manaslu Himal (Manaslu, Himalchuli and Ngadi Chuli) came into view. In the far distance, there stood one outstandingly high, black peak, but I had no idea of its name. I strained to find our objective amongst the sea of mountains. Miyazaki, her forehead pressed against the window, her tea turned cold with neglect, finally said, “Wow! Isn’t that Machapuchare? Yes, it’s part of the Annapurna Range!”

  Thoughts flooded my mind: “We’re here. We’ve come a long way and we’re finally seeing Annapurna with our very eyes. It’s no longer a fantasy mountain in my imagination; it’s real.” I wanted to shout, “It’s been a long journey!”

  The plane touched down and jolted to a stop on the runway that only seconds ago I had caught a glimpse of from the sky. On the ground, a dust storm engulfed the aircraft and our surroundings were briefly concealed. This gave me a chance to catch my breath from a flight that had me in a mix of emotions. I was rattled by both excitement and nerves on a plane crammed with team members and Sherpas, oxygen bottles and fuel, altogether sharing one fate, in the hands of our pilot. While the Sherpas chanted their prayers from the moment we took off until we landed, I, too, desperately prayed for an uneventful voyage. To safely land was to exhale my nervousness. Kathmandu was now behind us.

  As we disembarked, the reality of the airport’s setting sunk in. It was more like a grassland ranch, with Machapuchare and Annapurna II and III magnificently standing on the outskirts. Stunned by the place’s beauty and unable to contain myself any longer, I ran laps around the meadow/airport with a feeling I can only express as pure joy.

  March 20

  Our main purpose in Pokhara was to buy food and hire more porters to help transport supplies to Base Camp. Back in Japan, we had already secured one hundred porters through the Himalayan Society, but once in Nepal, we realized we needed forty more. Circumstance was against us. The Kansai Climbing Club had already departed for Dhaulagiri, as had the Kansai University party towards Annapurna IV; and a British party, lead by Chris Bonington, who stayed at the same hotel as us, was to leave for the South Face of Annapurna I. A joint party of the British and NepaleseArmies were also en route to the North Face of Annapurna I. From my understanding, the combination of these expeditions required at least 450 porters. I thought forty more would be impossible to find, but we were reassured that porters would come from other villages only a few days’ hike away in order to work. The wait turned out to be painless. Mr. Gopal, who took it upon himself to solve the problem, hired forty-four porters, all Tibetan, from one of the British teams. There was mention about the manager of the British team not wanting Tibetan porters for some reason, so, as luck would have it, they became part of our group instead. In the end, we found them to be the hardest working of all the porters, and everyone benefitted from the exchange.

  Another surprise reared its head just as we thought we were fully organized. At our place of accommodation in the Snow View Hotel right across from the Pokhara Airport, I ran into a Japanese man speaking with Mr. Gopal. He was a doctor at the local medical clinic and was involved in researching the spread of typhoid along the Modi Khola River basin. He advised our entire team to receive the inoculation against the disease. So, Dr. O-no purchased the vaccine from the British-run Shining Hospital in Pokhara Bazaar, and all of us, Sherpas and porters included, received the shot. Just another day in preparation for the Annapurna III expedition.

  March 23

  One-hundred-and-forty porters were gathered in the courtyard of the hotel, among them a ten-year-old boy, a stumbling senior citizen and half a dozen clever-looking middle-aged women, to mention a few. All walks of life were amidst this colourful tribe, and I was certain our hike to Base Camp would be nothing less than interesting.

  Miyazaki, Dr. O-no and Mr. Gopal left by Jeep from the long line of porters to finalize a few details in Pokhara Bazaar. They had to pay for the typhoid vaccines and arrange for a local man to be a correspondent during our expedition. The correspondent’s role would include communication between Base Camp and mail runners, and established contacts in Japan. In the case of an emergency, he would oversee initiating a rescue operation. When their jobs were finished, they waited at a tea house for the rest of the team to arrive, and slowly but steadily, we appeared on foot in the distance. First, a porter came into view, the trip name – JWAE – vivid on his backpack. Then another and another. Porters, Sherpas and women team members formed a snaking line of 168 people moving forward with 4.5 tons of supplies. Spectacular. And like a theatre troupe, we continued this way for eight days, northwest from Pokhara to Lumle, then north–northeast to Base Camp. We transitioned from a hot and humid climate at 1000 metres in elevation to temperatures near 0°C at 3750 metres.

  At one point, no sooner had I felt a huge drop of rain slap my face than a torrential downpour began. I was soaked within the time it took to pull my umbrella from my pack. The storm only lasted ten minutes, lengthy enough to put a dent in our comfort level, but for the cracked dry path we walked along, it was merely a drip on a burning boulder, a momentary sizzle of moisture. The porters, with no hint of protection from the rain, felt the effects for a while, as the water streamed down their faces long after the clouds closed overhead.

  The peaks unfolded to new heights as we made our way from Pokhara. We passed through a Tibetan village and the ground transformed into a large grassland, the vast mountains beyond spreading like an ocean dotted with giant white caps. The unmistakable range of Ganesh appeared, and Machapuchare pierced the skyline like the Matterhorn. Soon the Annapurna Range would be in front of us.

  March 25

  After two more days of walking, there she was, the South Face of Annapurna III. From Chandrakot Pass at 1550 metres, I recognized the crux of the mountain where it reached the col shared by two routes that gained access to Annapurna III and Gangapurna. If we could navigate that section, we would reach the summit. My body tightened with positive tension as I considered the ascent.

  March 26

  We divided the group into three. The first of the pack was led by Hirakawa and Dr. O-no, the middle by Sato and Manita, and the tail by Hirano, Yamazaki, Miyazaki and me. Mr. Gopal fit somewhere in between.

  Hirakawa was both climber and nurse, which kept her busy with Dr. O-no as there was no shortage of medical concerns to address. Every day, as soon as we arrived at a new location, porters and local villagers gathered around the two of them. Abdominal pain, achy legs and endless coughs were attended to time and again, and the team of doctor and nurse worked efficiently to manage the stream of patients in line.

  Hirakawa, from Osaka, spoke with a dialect that was permanently rich with laughter, no matter how serious she tried to seem. She had strived hard to be on this expedition, training with 30-kilogram loads on her back after midnight shifts of work. She was the tallest of the group and had a monstrous appetite. Her appearance was one of immense strength. Accordingly, we nicknamed her Sherpani.

  A similar air surrounded Dr. O-no. Despite her lack of mountaineering experience, she always hiked ahead of the group with fresh energy and zeal. Her will power was stoutly positive and unhindered, which unleashed an added confidence in all of us. The only time teammates were hesitant to approach her was at the dinner table, where, like Hirakawa, she displayed her large appetite. Only Dr. O-no could get excited about canned Pacific saury as a meal. There was no surprise when we established the doctor as being the best – and Hirakawa as second best – when it came to resilience in drinking.

  In the middle of our meandering convoy was Sato, the tiniest of the team members, and Manita,
who stood as tall as Hirakawa at 5-foot-5 but with a stockier frame. Hiking together, Sato and Manita made a comical pair in regard to their size differences. Sato was popular among the Sherpas and porters because she was cute, and she was the only smoker among the women. When she ran out of her Japanese-made cigarettes, the Sherpas and porters were quick to offer their local stash. Her posture when she smoked – left hand casually placed in pants’ pocket and a gentle lean forward while she inhaled – was the subject of much mimicking by our comedian, Mr. Gopal.

  Manita was a high-school science teacher. She was meticulous in her ways, as one would expect from a scientist, and cleanliness was of utmost importance – to the point of washing her hair every third day on our trip if water was available. At Camp 3, she even collected droplets of water from ice, in order not to waste fuel, so she could brush her teeth.

  Manita’s passion for expression came out in her diary, with detailed and precise illustrations and descriptions of our journey. Sadly, her diary was lost deep in a crevasse on Annapurna when she tried to throw her backpack across the giant crack in the ice. Sherpas managed to rescue the pack by lowering themselves into the crevasse, but the diary had slipped out and was gone. Words could not express the regret Manita felt for a long time afterwards. Everyone was upset by her loss of personal communication.

  Miyazaki and Mr. Gopal often hiked together. They usually departed early and arrived late at the next location. Having caught up to them one day at a spot that overlooked the village of Ghandrung, our routine banter began: “Wow, here you are, Mr. Gopal!” we announced. “Yes, we see each other again!” he replied as we started to hike as a small group. His jokes continued along the way as he pointed to himself and Miyazaki. “We’re an example of before and after. Do you understand?” he asked, making fun of how a diet works – Miyazaki being so skinny that we called her Ms. Bone, and Mr. Gopal overshadowing her with his large size. Finally, I said, “See you after the expedition!” and I sifted my way to the back of the line to check on the Sherpas and porters.

  One night, as we were about to crawl into our sleeping bags, begging for rest, one of the Sherpas explained that the villagers wanted to dance with us to display their welcome. It was an odd request since we had heard that the very next village, Chomrong, was “no country for women.” Nevertheless, we rose to the occasion and attended the party. There, dancing, was a boy disguised as a girl. To our amusement, a closer look disclosed that he was one of our porters. No one would believe that this finely dressed-up maiden could be such a hard worker on the trail. Another porter lent himself to the band as he cheerfully sang for his audience. All the entertainers were men, a garish show, indeed, and at the end, the villagers stepped up with fresh leis to place around the necks of the team members and Sherpas. Sirdar Girmi shouted out, “Success for Annapurna III!” Whether it was his enthusiasm for the climb or his allotment of locally brewed whisky that fuelled his outburst, one will never know.

  For the remainder of the night, under a crisp moon, I hung on to those words: success for Annapurna III.

  March 27

  Chomrong, the women-forbidden village, sat at the headwaters of the Modi Khola River. Our mood abruptly changed from excitement at the joyous welcome of the night before to concern for what lay ahead in Chomrong. A Japanese mountaineering party in 1964 and a German party in 1965 both had their female porters stopped and pushed away from entering this village. The restriction was based on the belief that the area beyond Chomrong was the sacred sphere, hence no women were to pass through. In addition, our arrival marked the fifth year that the Nepali government had a country-wide ban on all expeditions, but also the first season for it to reopen to mountaineers. So, there we stood, on the doorstep of unfamiliar territory.

  We asked Mr. Gopal to manage the situation and somehow gain permission to continue our travels through Chomrong. His reaction was one of confusion: “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?” What? He had no idea about the restriction? In Japan we had been worried about it for months, wondering how to obtain a permit to access this particular village. We had already come to expect Mr. Gopal’s expressive authority in dilemmas, to make things happen with the snap of his fingers, like the way he had hired forty-four porters in a single day, or how in a brief chat with a pilot, he had arranged to have his forgotten sunglasses returned to him (by airplane, no less). Surely, we assumed, he would achieve passage for us through the part of Nepal that forbade the entry of women. But for him to not even know about the problem that lay ahead – that was certain disaster.

  With much discussion, we decided that Mr. Gopal and Miyazaki would travel ahead to diffuse the impact of 168 people, women included, descending on the village as one. “Mr. Gopal,” said Miyazaki, “our mission today is to get there fast and early, please.” She pleaded with her hiking partner and pushed him upright whenever he sat for a rest. His before-diet size required multiple breaks on the uphill, but Miyazaki would have none of it, and Mr. Gopal followed her with no complaint on that especially significant day.

  When I first glimpsed the tiny village of twenty houses down the valley, I hesitated, fearful that I was looking upon a community of scavengers ready to attack. Aware that such fear would fail to get us anywhere, we approached Chomrong almost on tiptoe, as if to sneak by the entire issue at hand.

  “Namaste, namaste,” the locals said, bidding us with their most respectful greeting. Having quickly assessed the situation, Mr. Gopal simply advised, “Nobody talks about it, so you don’t start questioning, either.” We followed his revered counsel and cheerfully returned the greeting to the villagers: “Namaste, namaste,” and that was that. Later, when we mused at the ease of it all, we wondered, with some disappointment, if the locals recognized us as women.

  The irony of that day came weeks after on May 25 when the mail runner from Base Camp en route to Pokhara had to arrange for porters to regroup and assist our team in the return from our climb. Plagued again by the timing of the British expedition, we were concerned that we would not be able to hire enough porters to help us descend. Imagine our shock when Base Camp was stirred to life with the sudden announcement on the evening of May 30: “Porters are here!” And who led the party of hired help? The people from Chomrong! Not only had they declined an offer to work for the British team, they clearly stated, “We’re for the women’s party.” We were speechless and more than grateful for their assistance.

  Their graciousness continued. On the hike out, the Chomrong porters urged us to hurry because they had scheduled a big party for us, one that was financed from their own pocket, with the very money we had just paid them for their services.

  By the time a limping Mr. Gopal arrived in Chomrong that night, it had been dark for a while. Flames from the bonfire grew in height and swayed like dancers back and forth. The villagers gathered together and the party began. Unable to resist the music for long, Mr. Gopal danced and danced, sore knee forgotten. Soon enough he was singing his favourite Japanese Soran-bushi, his body moving in rhythm like a Hawaiian hula dancer. That was the impetus we needed – each of us stood up to join him. We tried to appear coordinated as we mimicked jitterbug-style moves, but our real strength shone when it came to eating the delicious meat and egg dishes served to us by our cordial hosts. The party came to a brief stop during a rain shower, but everyone stayed in position and minutes later the activities resumed until well past midnight.

  The villagers placed wild flowers in our hair the next morning when it was time for us to say goodbye. History had occurred. A new wind had blown through this remote place in the Nepali Himalaya, changing a land that once forbade women to one that welcomed them. We left there in peace.

  Loads Up!

  March 29

  In less than an hour we knew the approach route to Base Camp would be completely snow covered, and we had two days of hiking left to complete. The porters walked barefoot or in light sneakers, which meant it was impossible for them to continue. There was also no way we would let t
hem sleep on snow without proper equipment. We had to think fast for a solution since we still needed their services. As it stood, they would have to return to Deurali to spend the night after having ferried loads to the snow line.

  We knew money talked and decided to add an extra six rupees per day to the regular fifteen that the porters earned, to cover the expense of shoes. Since there was no place to purchase footwear anywhere nearby, the additional payment was more an acknowledgement of the danger and cold the group endured. An additional four rupees would be paid to each porter who carried a load all the way to Base Camp.

  The next morning, I closely watched how many of our porter team would rather go home than push onwards. The ones who planned to leave stood as far from the loads of boxes as possible – forty-seven people in total. Footwear was not the determining factor after all: there were some with sneakers in the group that retreated, and there were barefoot porters among those who stayed. Hirano, the treasurer, paid out the wages to the porters as they left. She wore dark sunglasses and had a white bandana wrapped tightly around her head – like a pirate sharing her precious jewels. It was an effective guise because no one in line gave her any trouble.

  Progress on the trail brought us to the unavoidable snow. Suddenly, everything changed. The colour green was entirely gone, replaced by a solid blanket of white. Only brush tips of bushes poked through the cold surface, giving a hint of the foliage below. I encountered a porter who had already dropped a load higher up and was retracing the route home. His bare feet were purple. “It’s too cold,” he said. “I won’t go tomorrow.” Our boxes had been dropped at the toe of the South Annapurna Glacier, at an approximate elevation of 3600 metres, 150 vertical metres below our forecasted Base Camp.

  Advancement was slow. We had spent 9 days instead of 8 getting as far as we had, and there was still a day’s walk to Base Camp. We had supplies in Deurali that needed to be ferried (which was ultimately completed by 6 team members and 10 Sherpas, each carrying 30-kilogram loads on their back), plus the abandoned boxes on the glacier. The British party, with Bonington as leader, was camped nearby at our established pseudo base camp, and was dealing with a similar problem. In the end, it came down to the help of the porters. Even though our initial group of 144 dwindled to 97, and then 22, most of whom were Tibetan, these amazing individuals pushed themselves to the limit, despite wintry conditions. When it was time to part ways, we thanked them with a sincere arigato and a hearty shake of the hands, hoping we would meet again.