by Junko Tabei
After I passed through customs, I finally saw my daughter. She wore a new long dress and had a yellow ribbon in her hair. My mother clasped her hand and led her towards me. Noriko’s lips were tightly pursed; she was unsure of how to proceed. “Noriko, it’s your mom,” I said. It had been half a year since I had seen my only child. Her growth in that time filled me with joy. I hugged her in my arms, so grateful for our reunion. The moment was rushed as a line of cameramen on stepladders poured over us to take photos. In the commotion, I glimpsed my mountain buddies and elementary school friends who had travelled a far distance to welcome me home.
My husband had waited for me at the Tokyu Hotel, keeping at bay the press, there for a scheduled interview. “Welcome back. Good job,” Masanobu said. I noticed that he and my mother and sister each appeared more tired than me. The burden of the past many months had taken its toll on everyone.
Ang Tsering and I spent two more days at the hotel for TV interviews and various greetings. My mother had left the airport having had only a brief peek at me; my daughter and husband returned to my sister’s home until I could be there too. Meanwhile, I was invited to a lunch party with Japan’s emperor and empress, prime minister, heritage and education minister, and minister of labour, all of whom I would never have met if not for the first women’s ascent of Mount Everest.
Ang Tsering felt out of place in Japan once Hisano had returned to her home in Nara, so he accompanied me to my sister’s house. Together we climbed Mount Fuji, ran experiments in the low-pressure lab at the University of Nagoya and visited Hokkaido. Our busy schedule had me drop 2 kilograms of body weight in Japan despite barely losing an ounce in the Himalayas.
Two months after my arrival back in Japan, I eventually returned to my home in Kawagoe. “Wasn’t that more tiring than climbing Everest?” I said to Ang Tsering, still dazed by the whirlwind of activity that greeted our return from Nepal.
“Yes!” he said. By that point, he must have been longing for his own home. I helped pack his bags for his final leg of the journey.
To my surprise, the spotlight on our climb did not lessen. There was an invitation from Motorola, the telecommunications company; an offer from a German television show; speech requests at numerous mountaineering clubs, education boards and companies; and newspaper and magazine interviews. The list was endless, and in that first year after Everest, I had very little time to settle back into home life.
Our Everest did not culminate at the safe return to Base Camp as I expected it to, and the interest in our trip became more far-reaching than we could have imagined. In one way, the attention we garnered was positive. It allowed us to pay off the team’s debt by way of a jointly written report book and photo exhibitions that were well received from miles around. In another way, it irreversibly changed my life.
By the end of 1975, almost one year after I had left for the Himalayas, I was finally able to send my husband on a trekking adventure in the Rolwaling area of Nepal, from where he would see Mount Everest himself. In booking his trip, I realized that we would once again miss spending New Year’s holiday together, a record that would repeat itself throughout our long marriage. Such was our life as a couple of devoted mountaineers.
CHAPTER 11
Women on Everest
Near the time of our climb, the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women’s Year at a world conference held in Mexico City. I heard afterwards that the audience at the conference surged with applause when news of the first female success on Everest was reported. Whether I wanted it to be or not, our climb became a symbol of women’s social progress.
During the exact minute I was standing on top of Everest, another woman was also aiming for the mountain’s summit, although from the Tibetan side of the mountain. Her name was Pan Duo, a member of the Chinese expedition, and she eventually reached the summit with male teammates on May 27, 1975, eleven days after my ascent.
The Tibetan landscape from the summit of Everest was striking to me. I had no idea the Chinese expedition of two hundred people was challenging the mountain from that side. The first I heard of it was when a reporter in Kathmandu asked me, “Can you believe that another woman was successful on Everest immediately after you? We’ve just received the news.” I was surprised and then realized that the chatter we sometimes heard on the radio during our climb was that of the Chinese team.
In that era, China was a mysterious nation not forthcoming with information. The country was closed behind bamboo curtains, so to speak. Still, I aspired to meet Pan Duo, mainly because she was another woman who shared the same dream as me even though she was from such a veiled country. The eleven-day difference between her ascent and mine placed her as the second female climber on Everest, but Pan Duo was the first female to climb the Tibetan route. This intrigued me, as did our shared age of thirty-five.
My chance to meet her came unexpectedly one day. In January 1979, I received a telegram from Maurice Herzog, the first person to climb to more than 8000 metres. He was inviting me to be part of a film project in France that would include the history of women on Everest. Pan Duo was also invited, and we were to travel to Chamonix that coming August. I quickly replied yes, if Pan Duo would attend, and wasted no time in preparing for the trip.
By that time, three women had stood on the summit of Everest: me and Pan Duo in 1975, and Wanda Rutkiewicz from Poland in 1978. I was excited to meet them both, especially to hear their answers to Herzog’s specific question: “Why Everest?” To which, each one of us had a unique response. “For myself and for my team,” I said. “For the Republic of China,” said Pan Duo. “For women’s liberation,” declared Rutkiewicz. I was shocked by their answers; their way of thinking was well beyond my basic reasons to climb.
Rutkiewicz led several women-only teams in her climbing career that included routes on the East Pillar of Norway’s Trollryggen (1968), the North Pillar of the Eiger (1973) and North Face of the Matterhorn in winter (1978). She was a prominent light for women climbers in a time when men dominated the field. Sadly, she disappeared from the North Face of Kanchenjunga in 1992 during her amazing pursuit of all fourteen 8000-metre peaks, eight of which she summitted, including the first female ascent of K2 in 1986.
Pan Duo was sought after by the Chinese government to be part of the country’s first attempt on Everest in 1960. She had a robust build and a successful climbing history that could not be ignored. Nonetheless, she was ordered to remain below 6400 metres on Everest. “Above that elevation is a man’s world,” she was told. Her frustration was evident.
In 1961 she was also successful on Kongur Tiube in China; however, due to sudden bad weather on the descent, one of her female teammates was killed and Pan Duo froze her feet (she had five toes amputated afterwards). When we met in Chamonix, she showed me the remnants of her lost toes and determinedly remarked, “My toes were given to the nation.” I was shocked by her words, and as a person born in a country where people enjoy mountaineering for leisure, I was unable to relate to Pan Duo’s easy acceptance of the matter.
The next Chinese Everest expedition, in 1975, was a nation-devoted project. The government recruited as many women candidates as possible for the first female ascent. At the time, Pan Duo, who was married to a Han tribesman, had three young children, including a baby still being breastfed. When she became an official member of the Everest team, she had to move to Beijing without her family to begin intense and difficult training for many years. She did not see her then five-month-old baby, who was adopted by her husband’s parents, until nearly sixteen years later.
On Everest, the team was pushed extremely hard. “Climb ahead of Japanese women!” they were ordered. Pan Duo continued their story for me: “We had a tragic accident at about 8600 metres, and a member died. So, we retreated down to 8300 metres for a short while, with a heavy feeling in all of us. It was then we heard of your success and it greatly inspired us to resume our attack once more. Really good.” I was impressed to know that our success rais
ed their spirits. My friendship with Pan Duo was solid from our meeting in Chamonix until she passed away in 2014. She was seventy-five.
As it was for me, Everest was a huge game changer for Pan Duo. As a result of the climb, she was hired by the General Administration of Sport and became an active member in national politics. Her family became wealthy, too. She was chosen to represent China at the World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, and in 2008, she gallantly carried the Olympic flag with fellow athletes for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. I tuned in to those games on television, and I felt a profound sense of pride when I watched her hold that flag.
Years after that trip to Chamonix in 1979, I thought about meeting all the women who had climbed Everest to date. I realized there were cultural and societal differences in our individual pursuits of the mountain, and I was interested to learn more about the female perspective, especially since the number of women on Everest was increasing year by year.
So, my long-acquainted climbing partner and friend Setsuko Kitamura and I created the opportunity to meet these women by hosting an event marking the twentieth anniversary of our success on Everest, titled Mount Everest Women’s Summit 1995. I knew it was now or never; the number of women who had stood on Everest by then was thirty-two; it would be difficult to organize a greater number of women in the future.
In planning for June, we sent a questionnaire to each of the thirty-two climbers to narrow down who we would invite. Based on replies, people’s availability, and what we could afford in terms of flights and accommodation, we invited nine climbers from six different countries. We also extended an invitation to Elizabeth Hawley, the American journalist specializing in mountaineering who had been living in Nepal for thirty-five years. Meanwhile, news arrived that on May 13, 1995, Alison Hargreaves, a thirty-three-year-old mother of two children from the United Kingdom, had been successful on Everest. She had completed a solo climb from the Tibetan side of the mountain without supplemental oxygen. “How wonderful,” we said. “Let’s invite her to Japan as well.” Unfortunately, she had to decline the invitation. She was leaving for K2. She was sorry to miss the event and she wished us the best.
On August 13, less than three months after we had received her reply, Hargreaves died on K2. Her children were four and six years old. I had such regret for this loss; I wished so much that she would have come to Japan and that I could have met her. I found myself, even years later, trapped in the moment of thought she may have experienced in the split second of the accident that took her life. I completely understood the dread of such a moment.
When the day of the women’s summit arrived in Tokyo, it had been sixteen years since I had first met Pan Duo in Chamonix. She looked remarkably different. Instead of the dark Mao-style suit she wore in France, Pan Duo was dressed in a blue suit patterned with large, colourful peony flowers; she carried a black handbag and wore pumps, and even her hair had changed from a plain short cut to a wavy style, with a few wisps of white peeking through to show her age.
“When I was just about at the top of Everest, not a thought of my children or family entered my mind. I was too afraid of not being able to make the summit at the last moment,” Pan Duo said to me, suggesting she was not necessarily a warm family person. But her actions showed otherwise. She insisted that we must have our picture taken together, with my husband and children, too, because she had promised to share it with her family. She also spoke kindly with my son, Shinya. “Oh, you are the one born after Chomulungma [Everest]. All right, all right, you are a big boy now,” and she repeatedly shook his hand. Shinya later remarked that the handshake almost crushed his bones. Behind her position as vice-chairman of the Chinese Mountaineering Association was a regular mother who deeply cared for children.
In her speech at the event, her diplomatic side shone brightly, too, exhibiting Pan Duo’s pride in being a strong Tibetan woman. “In China, we have many mountains; nine peaks of more than 8000 metres share borders with either Nepal or Pakistan, just to list a few, and international mountaineers and explorers set their ambitions on them all the time. We welcome you folks to come over and climb the mountains in China, and I look forward to deepening our friendship and partnership. I cannot wish too much for a peace-and-equality flag to flutter high over those mountains in China.”
Comments from other climbers offered even more of a cross-section of our collective experiences in the mountain world. We were a unique group, tied by our love for high places.
It is very hard for women to get an education in India. I was one of five siblings but only one daughter, hence pressed to marry when I was fourteen. So, I left home at sixteen to avoid being married off and I went to university in Jaipur. My door to the Himalayas opened up when I joined an international camp held on Nun Kun massif in Kashmir in 1989, and eventually I was chosen for India’s Everest team in 1992.
– Santosh Yadav, India, two-time climber of Everest
South Korea has a strong tradition of Confucianism and it trends to male dominance. Having joined with the university’s mountaineering club in 1979, I started realizing the absolute power gap between men and women through rock and ice climbing. There, I saw the general status between men and women begin to waver. My conclusion is that we have to upgrade women’s status first before we climb mountains with ease.
– Ji Hyun-ok, South Korea
I have never been discriminated against as a female mountaineer. Having heard your stories, I feel lucky to have been born in the United Kingdom, where outdoor activities are encouraged no matter the gender. I started mountaineering at age fifteen and naturally joined the mountaineering club at university. I also chose to research the subject of altitude sickness in order to connect my personal passion with my work. My American husband and I met on a commercial expedition team for Everest and stood at the top of the world together. So, Everest is a special place for me as well.
– Dr. Ginette Harrison, United Kingdom
On May 18, 1998, Dr. Harrison climbed the North Face of Kangchenjunga and became the first woman to summit the world’s third-highest peak; on May 22, 1999, she was the first British woman to summit Makalu. In 1999 she died in an avalanche on Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh-highest mountain. She was forty-one years old.
These stories traced a path through the generations and evolution of big-mountain climbing, from the first four women on Everest in the 1970s who were responsible for all aspects of trip preparation, to a newer era in the 1990s when commercial expeditions became available. I was fascinated by the array of experiences we shared.
Lydia Bradey from New Zealand was the most distinctive of all the female climbers at the women’s summit. In October 1988, she became the first female to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. She was tall and blonde and full of humour; her mischievous nature made me feel like we had been friends for a long time. On the stage, she spoke about her Everest climb while showing slides of the expedition. She went there as a member of the joint team for New Zealand and Czechoslovakia. Their original permit allowed them to climb the Southwest Face, but the weather was too poor to continue on that route. So, alone, Bradey climbed the Southeast Ridge, without a proper permit, thus making her success problematic. Three other Kiwi climbers, including the team leader, criticized her for continuing and returned to Kathmandu while Bradey was still climbing to higher camps. They even denounced her achievement when they heard she had summitted the mountain.
Unfortunately, she had no way to prove her victory. Her camera had frozen and she had lost her watch, and was therefore unable to record the precise time of reaching the summit. Furthermore, since she feared prohibition of entry back into Nepal for the next ten years for ignoring the Nepalese government’s requirement for a permit, she played down her success. Her situation of true or false, real or fake, became dubbed Lydia-Gate, and as such, was highly controversial.
Time, however, proved to be on Bradey’s side. A Spanish party paid homage to her account and provided tes
timony that they passed her near the summit on the day she claimed to be there. Under scrutiny, she was able to confirm specific details about summit conditions, to which the Spanish party agreed.
Open-minded and honest, she explained that the thought of using oxygen had never occurred to her. In fact, having not used bottled oxygen before, she was unfamiliar with how the apparatus even worked. She said that the sentiment of “I did it!” only caught up to her after she had summitted and then descended to the South Summit, where she felt safer, and could readily embrace her accomplishment.
I think the invitation to tell her story in Japan, while the debate was still ongoing, gave Bradey a welcome chance to officially report her climb. It was a pleasure to hear her version.
By the end of the women’s summit, the atmosphere of the hall was vividly charged. We were an intense group of women. The next day, we would head to Mount Fuji to clean up the climbing area.
The next morning, the rainy days turned to blue sky. More than two hundred people showed up to participate, making it fun for everyone to contribute, public and climbers alike. Bradey chatted away as she gracefully stepped off route onto sketchy scree to pick up more garbage.
After the cleanup, the women Everest climbers regrouped and headed to an onsen resort in Hakone. Our Chinese, Indian and South Korean colleagues chose to not partake in the outside iwa-onsen (rocky hot springs). Likely, their cultural norms led them to feel a bit too exposed, naked in the outdoor pools. Bradey, on the other hand, jumped right in. Before we knew it, Kitamura and I were in stitches, trying to talk the bare Bradey out of bouldering on the rocks that surrounded the pool.
Kitamura and I climbed the Eiger after the women’s summit, and we sent a postcard to Bradey. When we returned home from Switzerland, a long letter from her greeted us.
Thanks for the invitation. It was an amazing experience. Being accepted as a real summitter was like being purified. My image of Japanese people has been transformed as well. I used to think Japanese people were extremely serious with little room for humour; however, I was wrong. My conclusion is that Japanese have more of a sense of humour than the people in most of the countries I’ve been to so far, and that’s why I was laughing for more than half the time I spent in Japan.