Junko Tabei Climbs Everest
On 16 May 1975, the Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei reached the summit of Mount Everest, becoming the first woman to stand on the world's highest peak. Her climb was a landmark for women in mountaineering, and it came at a time when high-altitude climbing was still dominated by men, particularly in Japan and in the expeditions that attracted international attention.
Tabei was born in 1939 in Miharu, in Fukushima Prefecture, and began climbing as a child on a school trip. She studied literature at Showa Women's University and continued to climb as an adult, often finding that men were reluctant to accept her as an equal partner on the mountain. In 1969 she helped found the Ladies Climbing Club in Tokyo, whose motto was to go on an overseas expedition by themselves. The group climbed in Japan and abroad, including Annapurna III in Nepal in 1970, before turning to Everest. Funding was a persistent difficulty, since many sponsors doubted that an all-women team would succeed, and members made some of their own equipment and economized heavily.
The Japanese Women's Everest Expedition of 1975 included about fifteen climbers, with Tabei as a leader of the climbing party. They attempted the standard route from Nepal through the Khumbu Icefall and up to the South Col. In early May, an avalanche hit the team's camp at about 6,300 metres and buried several climbers, including Tabei, who was briefly unconscious. All were rescued, with the help of Sherpa climbers, and though Tabei was badly bruised, she chose to continue. Some days later she and the Sherpa climber Ang Tshering reached the summit. Tabei's achievement came just under two weeks before the Tibetan climber Phanthog became the second woman to summit, from the Tibetan side, though the details of that ascent are sometimes less well documented in English-language sources.
Tabei continued to climb for the rest of her life. In 1992 she became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent, and she later climbed in many other countries. She also studied environmental issues in mountain regions, including waste left on popular peaks, and worked for conservation organizations in Japan and Nepal. She died in 2016 at the age of 77, after living with cancer for several years while still being active in the mountains.
Tabei's legacy lies both in the record and in the example. Her ascent challenged assumptions about who could attempt extreme expeditions, and it helped open the way for later generations of women climbers around the world.