by Junko Tabei
However, in the midst of the intense game of chase, where new generations of young women climbers caught up with Tabei’s accomplishments and surpassed her with their impressive feats, Tabei continued to sail into her own new world, business as usual.
From the era of Showa to Heisei (1926-present),9 from the twentieth to twenty-first century, in the period when Japanese women finally gained small wings, a woman less than 153 centimetres in height flapped her wings big time and became an important figure in mountaineering history.
I wish I could enjoy again the hot croquettes that Tabei cooked for me in the past, while I see how things turn out in the next chapter of mountaineering that follows my friend’s footprints to the summit.
(Originally written in February 2000; adapted for the 2017 publication of Honouring High Places.)
* * *
1Most of Japanese history is divided into conventional eras that are based on the reigns of the emperors. The modern eras from 1868 are:
1868–1912 Meiji Emperor Mitsuhito
1912–1926 Taisho Emperor Yoshihito
1926–1989 Showa Emperor Hirohito
1989–present Heisei Emperor Akihito
2Walter Weston was an English clergyman and Anglican missionary who helped popularize recreational mountaineering in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century.
3Kansai is a region in the south of Honshu, Japan’s main island. In its centre is the city of Kyoto, Japan’s capital from 794 to 1869.
4Chhaang is a relative of beer. Barley, millet (finger-millet) or rice grains are used to brew the drink. Semi-fermented seeds of millet are served, stuffed in a barrel of bamboo called a dhungro.
5The Snow Leopard award was a Soviet mountaineering award given to experienced climbers who summitted the five peaks of 7000-plus metres in the former Soviet Union.
6The Plaza Accord was signed in 1985 by the governments of France, West Germany, Japan, the United States of America and the United Kingdom. It aimed to depreciate the US dollar in relation to Japanese and German currencies by intervening in currency markets.
7In May 1995 Alison Hargreaves took on the North Face of Everest, the route pioneered by George Mallory and his companions in the 1920s. Hargreaves insisted on carrying all her own gear, pitching her own tent and surviving without the aid of supplementary oxygen.
8Taeko Nagao (leader) and Yuka Endo, both with three 8000ers to their credit, and male partner Yasushi Yamanoi, with two 8000ers, climbed Cho Oyu’s Southwest Face, in pure alpine style. At the time, this route had been scaled only once before by Swiss climbers Erhard Loretan and Jean Troillet, and Poland’s Voytek Kurtyka in 1990.
9Most of Japanese history is divided into conventional eras that are based on the reigns of the emperors. The modern eras from 1868 are:
1868–1912 Meiji Emperor Mitsuhito
1912–1926 Taisho Emperor Yoshihito
1926–1989 Showa Emperor Hirohito
1926–present Heisei Emperor Akihito
CHAPTER 1
Avalanche!
May 4, 1975
We were a month and a half on Mount Everest, no more than a week from the summit, with our route fixed as high as Camp 5 at the South Col. In an unusual combination of logistics, several of us had descended to Camp 2 for the night. There, our group of expedition tents was pitched along the broad knoll that marked the camp on the Western Cwm Glacier, positioned away from the threat of falling cornices off nearby Nuptse. We considered ourselves to be in a safe spot – a welcomed event on Everest, and enough to let me sleep. I surrendered to the silence. Then, at half-past midnight, vibration, a deafening noise and – WHAM – impact.
With no warning and in the frigid hours of darkness, several tons of snow and ice had suddenly released from the flank of Nuptse and exploded downwards a thousand metres. Non-stop, the thunderous mass of snow pushed up and over the knoll where we slept and barrelled directly across the glacier of our camp. Earlier, there was a mix-up in ferrying loads, and we arrived at Camp 2 short one sleeping bag. Watanabe and I shared a bag with our legs stuffed in together for warmth, our upper bodies wrapped in down coats. When the avalanche hit, I was forced upright, yanking at Watanabe by way of our proximity as the immense blow shook me to my core. Within seconds I could hardly breathe as an enormous pressure bore down on me. Confusion set in as I was tossed and turned upside down, the tent whipping around in somersaults amongst the churning ice. I thought for a moment I was dead.
An instant later, the avalanche stopped. The entire camp was frozen in place, crushed between unyielding chunks of ice blocks, myself included. I was unable to move an inch. Any attempt to flex a muscle or shift my position was met with defeat. All effort was in vain while our tent, with my teammates inside, was buried in a mound of avalanche debris.
“Everybody OK?” I yelled at the top of my voice, startled by its loudness. There was no response. I realized then that someone was on top of me. It was Mihara, her hair smothering my face. Our noses touched. Neither of us could properly breathe.
Instinct told me I needed a knife. I reached for the cord around my neck and yanked at the hidden tool with my right hand but I was unable to free it, my arm rendered useless. With urgency, I bit at the knife with my teeth and pulled the blade from its sheath. “Mihara-san, cut the tent open!” My breath was short.
“I can’t do it,” she said. The cord of her sleeping bag was wrapped around her neck, her hands and feet unable to move. “Tabei-san, I’m suffering.” I could feel her pain exhaled on my face as she spoke.
As if in fast-forward, I realized there were too many of us at Camp 2. Usually a dozen or so climbers based themselves there, but we were a party more than twice that size. My mind filled with newspaper headlines: “Worst accident ever in the climbing history of Mount Everest – seven climbers, three journalists, 18 Sherpas – a total of 28 killed in an avalanche.” I was convinced that everyone had been buried. My thoughts rushed to family and friends at home and how they would feel when they read such a thing.
I was shocked back to reality as my breathing continued to fail. Coloured lights of red, yellow and purple started to flash in front of my eyes. Mihara was gasping, too. My mind flitted to Noriko, my three-year-old daughter; she would be devastated if I died. I was determined to hang on, to stay alive. As soon as I processed that thought, I slipped into unconsciousness.
No sooner had I felt a strong physical pull on my body than I was thrown from the tent and on to the snow. Beside me was Mihara, kneeling and mumbling in a barely audible voice, her hands in prayer position. In the sheer darkness, I could vaguely see the feet of the person leaning over me, someone I failed to recognize, but in that moment, I knew I had been saved. “Everybody alive?” I instinctively asked.
Although I spoke in Japanese, a response came in English. “Yes, all members safe.” No fatalities. Relief flooded over me, which allowed my mind to slip into unconsciousness once more.
The loud voice of cameraman Akamatsu jolted me awake. “She could die from hypothermia if left out here for too long! Where is Ang Tsering? Clear out a Sherpa tent and bring all the climbers in!” I heard the goings-on around me, but my body was unable to respond to my own orders to move. The Sherpas ran to help me, and I was carried inside a tent. My teammates were already lying there: Naka, with assisted oxygen, and Mihara, Nasu, Manita and Arayama. I was placed on the ground right in the middle of them.
As I joined my teammates, I could see in each climber’s face the fear and shock caused by the mayhem of the avalanche. Frantic voices of the journalists and Sherpas filled the nighttime air that hovered around –20°C outside the tent. The feel of a disaster zone seeped through the thin nylon wall that separated us from the chaos. Orders were yelled back and forth, everyone uncertain of exactly how things should unfold next.
“Fix the kitchen tent then brew tea for everybody!”
“Lights! What happened to the lights?”
“Where’s the first-aid kit? One of the Sherpas has a serious
cut on his forehead and the bleeding hasn’t stopped.”
“Pitch an extra tent! We’ll get frostbite in this condition. Put on proper clothes to stay warm!”
“Is there any further danger of avalanche? We should be on watch all night.”
“Where are the oxygen bottles? Find the masks, as many as possible!”
“Where’s the radio? We need to let Base Camp know as soon as possible.”
“We’re unable to call in the middle of the night.”
“Then send the mail runners to Camp 3, Camp 1 and Base Camp right away. Look for a note pad to write on. We can’t wait for the regular radio call tomorrow morning.”
Akamatsu, who had previous expedition experience, entered the tent. He checked my neck, hands and feet, and then shifted me onto my belly and surveyed my back and trunk. As abruptly as he had arrived, he concluded, “No part of your body seems broken. Don’t move; we’ll get oxygen right away.” I heeded his words, stunned by the severity of the situation.
As I lay there, I counted and recounted the number of us in the tent, each time ending up with six, including myself. This bothered me to no end. Someone was missing, but I was unable to fathom which team member was not present. Again, I asked if everyone was safe. Akamatsu said, “Watanabe is all right in the other Sherpa tent.” At first, I doubted his answer, certain he was meaning to console me. Judging by our positions in the tent prior to the avalanche, I was sure that Watanabe had been badly hurt (or worse), as she would have likely been the one to end up underneath the pile of climbers when the snow hit and we were sent into a mad tumble. But it turned out that Watanabe was safe. She had been thrown from the tent and trapped between ice blocks that kept her unscathed rather than pummelled by the debris and the weight of four women, all of which landed on me instead. In our jumbled state, I was buried by Nasu and Manita, large-sized climbers by Japanese standards at 60 kilograms each, and Mihara. Once the three of them were dug out, there was only one pair of feet and ankles still visible above the mass of snow: mine. It took the strength of four Sherpas to pull me out, an action that left me unable to walk for a while afterwards since my ankle and hip joints had been completely stretched loose. This was a small price to pay for their quick response – if the Sherpas had taken another four or five minutes to rescue us, several climbers, including me, would have died from suffocation.
When Akamatsu left the tent, cameraman Kitagawa stepped in to reassure us. “Everybody is all right. Stay calm. We’re brewing tea for you right now,” he said, but his voice depicted distress instead of the reassurance he had intended.
Someone beside me moaned, “I’m sick, Tabei-san, I’m very sick.” I immediately tried to turn towards the voice, to see who had spoken, but my attempt was futile as my body remained immobile. The shock of this realization, that I was potentially impaired, ran right up my spine. I felt like a slow-motion mime, only able to carefully shift my neck to the side.
Naka was the source of the anguish beside me. The day before, she had been on her way down from Camp 3 to Base Camp via Camp 2 for one night due to altitude sickness. Now she lay in total distress. The six of us were arranged in alternating headfirst and foot-first positions in the tent, so it took a concentrated effort for me to sit upright to look at her. I immediately saw the problem. The flow of oxygen from the bottle to her mask had been cut off by weight on the tube. I properly adjusted the oxygen so Naka could breathe easier, and then Mihara groaned in a weakened voice. Her chest hurt. In total darkness, Kitagawa managed to set up a second oxygen bottle for Mihara to use. With that in place, a third person spoke up. Nasu complained of an extreme chill. Mihara and I tried to help by doubling up sleeping bags on Nasu’s feet and switching Mihara’s oxygen mask to Nasu. Meanwhile, I was in excruciating pain; it felt like my body was being crushed with every movement I made, yet I had to continue to help my teammates.
“I’m bleeding,” Nasu cried. My head began to swim. She must have cut her finger when she slit the tent open with her knife. Mihara gently wrapped Nasu’s hands with her own, and soothingly said, “It’s OK, it’s OK.” Manita also complained – her chill was incessant – but I was too far away to assist. Arayama sat nearest to the entranceway in a squatted position without uttering a word. Our team was as far from the summit of Everest as we had ever been.
Ang Tsering finally came in to check on our condition, his face strained with worry. In answer to my immediate question about what the journalists were doing, he said they were about to discuss the necessary next steps. Despite my hopes of joining them, my body lay non-responsive. Then bit by bit, my chest began to hurt, and pain seeped into my back. I wondered what was wrong with me. My lower body felt stick-like – a useless segment that I had no control over. Next, somebody put an oxygen mask on my face, which eased the pain, but my irritation grew. I knew what was happening outside the tent, and I was unable to participate. As overall trip assistant and leader of the climbing party, I was supposed to take charge, yet I was helpless due to injury. My futile state was excruciating to me.
Camp 2 had been established weeks earlier, on April 8, at which time the Sherpas pitched their tent to the west of where we pitched ours, a slight distance apart. At the time of avalanche, one of the Sherpas was up to use the toilet and noticed the start of the slide. He knew it would escalate and, acting quickly, he woke the rest of the Sherpas. They braced themselves for impact, gripping onto the tent poles as if to make an impenetrable wall. Later they would speak of wild sparks of electricity shooting through their hands when the huge blocks of snow and ice flew over their tent with an unbelievable roar. Once the avalanche stopped, the six of them escaped from their tent by slamming against the mass of snow that barricaded the entranceway. A look towards where our tent had originally stood confirmed what they feared, that it had disappeared. In a panic, they began to search for us without even pulling on their climbing boots. Bulldozed 10 metres downslope from its initial site, our tent was found buried under the frozen debris. The Sherpas dug and pushed their way through blocks of ice, shredding the tent into pieces so they could extract us one after the other.
Three of the expedition’s seven journalists were also at Camp 2 that night. Their tent was located higher than ours and managed to stand its ground amidst the moving snow. Although Akamatsu, Kitagawa and Emoto were knocked over and piled up at the doorway, they were able to crawl out themselves by cutting the tent fabric open.
It was evident that all the tents, including the Sherpas’, would have been completely buried, with no chance for our survival, had we set them up in the same spot as the Spanish team did the previous year.
In the pre-dawn hours at Camp 1, Kitamura, the manager of ferrying equipment on the mountain, was asleep alongside Hirashima and Fujiwara. In a dreamlike state, she heard the approach of crampons crunching on snow. Knowing it was too early for the first ferry load to arrive from Base Camp, she tried to tune in to what else she could hear outside the tent. Then, in alarm, a voice in broken English bellowed: “Memsahib, memsahib! Avalanche, avalanche! But nobody is die.” Kitamura was instantly awake and out of her sleeping bag. Nobody is die? She struggled to open the tent and take in the scene of confusion thrown at her by two Sherpas panting and yelling at the doorway. They thrust the note sent from the journalists into her hands in hopes that she could quickly comprehend what had unfolded only hours ago at Camp 2.
After the Sherpas recovered from their hasty descent to Camp 1, they readied themselves to continue to Base Camp to further convey news of the avalanche. Knowing that team leader Hisano would soon be informed of the night’s events allowed Kitamura to focus on the task at hand in preparation for what was to come. She and her teammates fired up the stove and began the painstaking process of melting snow to brew litres of tea for the sick and injured climbers who would ultimately arrive back at her camp.
To Kitamura’s surprise, the Sherpas returned within an hour of leaving Camp 1 and reported that the icefall below had collapsed. They were unable t
o find the ladder to continue down. Their only solution was to notify by radio the Sherpas at Base Camp and have them climb up, find the ladder and fix the route; but this was communication that would have to wait for the scheduled morning call. Kitamura grew more anxious by the minute at the delay in contact with Hisano, but she was able to reach her teammates at Camp 2. One after the other, their wound-up voices described the incident: “Incredible disaster … tents buried under ice blocks … food and equipment also buried in avalanche debris.” The words that counted the most though, the ones that reassured her long enough to wait for interaction with Hisano, were these: “…no fatalities.”
By dawn, several other Sherpas arrived to help at Camp 2 after notification from the Sherpas who had run to Camps 1 and 3 with news of the avalanche. Among them were teammates Taneya and Shioura from Camp 3.
At 6 a.m., the scheduled radio call broke the silence as climbers nervously waited to communicate the disaster to Base Camp. Reporter Emoto from The Yomiuri Shimbun was the spokesperson from Camp 2. “Base Camp from Camp 2,” he said. “Leader Hisano, are you there?” Once contact was confirmed, he began: “Please calmly listen to me. Last night, at 12:30, Camp 2 was caught in an avalanche. Fortunately, nobody was killed. But the scale of the avalanche was huge. Quite an amount of our food, equipment and oxygen bottles have been buried. To my regret, we have no choice other than to give up this expedition.”
Shocked, Hisano said, “Everybody alive? All of them alive?! Confirm again, please.”
“Yes,” said Emoto, “everybody survived; however, there are a few injured Sherpas, and Naka has altitude sickness. We will send them to Base Camp right away. Please have the doctor prepared to treat them immediately.”
“All right, all right. Tell me more about the avalanche.” The leader’s unease and concern were clear despite the heavy static of the radio. Then Kitamura at Camp 1 interjected.
