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Everest is the highest mountain above sea level on earth, at 29,032 feet (or 8848 meters). The air pressure up there is about one-third of what most of us are used to. The human body cannot remain indefinitely above 19,000 feet. Many people are seriously suffering long before that, and most Everest climbers use bottled oxygen to make it possible.

The first person credited with making it to the top was Sir Edmund Hillary from New Zealand in 1953. The second person credited is Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide. The Sherpa people have traditionally lived on Everest, but not at the very top, obviously. My immediate question is how do we know that no Sherpa ever made it to the top before Hillary? And the answer is we don’t, but there’s no documented proof, nor would there be much incentive for them to do something so dangerous, so expensive, and so time-consuming. It takes a specific cultural and financial mindset to think that would be fun.

Hillary was followed by a number of other mountaineers, some of whom succeeded, many of whom failed, and a fair percentage of whom died. It was not for timid or the sedentary.

Mountain Climbing in Japan

One country that blossomed with mountaineers was Japan. Traditionally, the Japanese climbed mountains for religious reasons. In Japan to climb the mountain was a form of worship; it was not for fun or for sport. But Westerners introduced new reasons for climbing mountains during the Meiji period, and the idea got much stronger after World War II (Tabei, 12).

One of the people who found it intriguing was Junko Ishibashi, born in 1939 in the Fukushima area in northern Japan. As a child, she was small and sickly and unathletic. But her fourth grade teacher took them on excursions to the nearby mountains, and Junko learned to love the idea of mountaineering, in part because it was not competitive (or so she thought). You could be small and slow and still succeed, as long as you made it to the top (Tabei, 38-40).

Junko went to a women’s college in Tokyo, which she found very stressful, but she found joy in the mountains and joined her college’s mountaineering club. Upon graduation, she took a job as an editor. She needed a new mountaineering club for non-students, but most of them wouldn’t accept women. She was told she should be raising children instead (Roberts). But she eventually found one club that would take her, and they taught her about climbing ropes and snow equipment and many other skills. Unfortunately, as one of the very few women, she was also plagued with gossip. Mountaineering often involves camping overnight, and sometimes you shared a tent because that’s how the equipment works out. Sharing that tent did not mean you were dating any of the men in the club, but there were rumors (Tabei, 46-48). Junko was fortunate to have a mentor who encouraged and helped her, but other climbers frequently made this difficult.

In 1946, she was cresting a ridge when she met another climber named Masanobu Tabei. He offered her some sorbet made from snow and sweet azuki (a red bean). She couldn’t believe he would carry something as heavy as a can of beans (Tabei, 55), while he couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t carry a sweet treat with her. That was part of the pleasure of the experience! Their first date was another climb. They also went hiking on their honeymoon (Tabei, 350).

Their passion for the sport was not dimmed by the danger, even though they had multiple close friends die in falls. Even though Masanobu had several of his toes amputated after climbing in the Alps (Tabei, 66).

Annapurna III

On March 5, 1969, Junko met with several other women to begin planning an all-female climb in the Himalayas. She had never been outside of Japan before.

They ultimately decided on Annapurna III, which is a mere 24,787 feet high, 42^nd highest in the world. This was a very serious commitment requiring enormous sacrifice to get there. Anyone going had to arrange three months off work for the actual trip, plus a lot of time preparing and training first. Also they had to put up 700,000 yen (Tabei, 73), which is around $40,000 in today’s money.

Junko and Masanobu were not rich, so this involved a great deal of scrimping, saving, and  finding extra jobs. Fortunately, he was fully supportive of her going.

She did climb Annapurna III, and when she reported success, he wrote back and said all was well at home, and she should climb a bigger one next time. Many years later, Junko wrote down this story and commented: “I married the right man for me” (Tabei, 120).

The women’s group on Annapurna III published a book afterwards, and it was not well received by other climbers. Plenty of mountaineers wrote books about their trips, and they always portrayed everyone behaving well, following instructions, and making each and every decision in perfect harmony and teamwork. And it was all a lie because when has any group project ever worked like that? Junko’s book exposed the very human fault lines that crop up under stress and limited resources, and it was a shock to the readers. And here Junko says something very interesting: She says that on the Annapurna III climb, she wanted to please everyone.

“This, in addition to the Japanese tendency to not be different from other people, made it difficult to stand by tough choices that were required on the mountain… Today, young people are encouraged to be unique, but in my day, we were strictly advised that being different was abnormal. Whether one belief is more correct than the other, I cannot comment, but what I do know … is that the old way failed me. Behaving as a social butterfly does not work in mountaineering—one must be clear with others; there is no time for mixed messages. Essentially, a person must be able to voice her opinion without worrying about criticism. To realize that for the first time at age thirty was eye-opening for me, and it changed my life thereafter. Once more, the mountains were my teacher” (Tabei, 121-122).

Planning for Everest

The next all-female expedition aimed for Everest. When Masanobu heard about it, he said go for it. But he also said could we have a child first? Junko was in favor of the child idea, but she was “unsure that I could have a baby at the snap of my fingers. But I did” (Tabei, 126).

As beautiful as a baby is, she introduces complications. Junko quit her job after Noriko was born, which was not her plan, but childcare was hard to find and the commute was long. Mothers the world over can relate here. But quitting meant less money to fund Everest. Mothers also can relate here. The planning alone was a major time commitment. Most days, Junko was a full-time mom during the day, and then she left for team meetings as soon as Masanobu came home, and he did childcare all evening. He was fully committed, but it was hard. Mothers also can relate here. Meanwhile, some of her fellow team members said Junko was lazy and selfish for not spending more evenings socializing with potential sponsors (Tabei, 131-134). Women also can relate here. No matter how you balance your work vs. yourself vs. your family, there is always someone to say you are doing it wrong. And quite frequently, the one saying it is another woman. Even more frequently, the one saying it is yourself.

In her autobiography, written many years later, Junko says relatively little about the ethics of pursuing a wildly dangerous, time-consuming, and expensive goal while also mothering a small child. This is a sore point for many women because when men do exactly the same thing, their status as a father rarely merits a mention. It’s not usually considered relevant or interesting. I’m diverting into a personal anecdote here, but as a teenager I went to see an IMAX documentary about climbing Mt Everest. I was there with some family friends. The film portrayed an emotionally fraught scene where a man knew he was going to die up there but he managed to get a radio call out to his young kids. The documentary portrayed it as sad, but the mother of our family friends wasn’t sad. She was angry. In her view it was deeply, deeply selfish for a father to go on such a trip at all, taking a risk like that when his children and his wife needed him alive. The film didn’t portray that angle at all.

Junko felt the tension. One of the other women along the Everest climb, named Setsuko Kitamura, wrote that for years afterwards, Junko described herself as “merely a housewife.” She also made comments like “…since it’s me being selfish going mountaineering…”

Setsuko eventually called her out on it. “Hey,” she said, “there are countless women who wish to pursue their own interests as much as you do. If you continue to act like an elite mom, they would hesitate, like ‘Oh, I’m not that superwoman like Junko Tabei,’ and the bunch of husbands would take advantage of it, and say ‘See, she doesn’t sabotage her domestic duties. Can’t you be as perfect as her?’” (Tabei, 16).

After that, Junko began describing herself as a mountaineer, not a housewife.

I don’t have the perfect answer to this dilemma, except to say that Junko had a highly supportive husband, and this would never have worked if he had been otherwise. He said later that he never minded because he also played hard in the outdoors. They approached house and parenting as a joint project (Tabei, 351-352). They took turns supporting each other on their individual projects. They both lived, so there’s no telling how each would have felt if the other had died.

The Nepali government only issues so many permits for Everest, and you must apply years in advance. (That’s why there was plenty of time to have a child.) In August 1972, Junko’s team was granted permission to climb in 1975, and that was the easy part. Corporate sponsors had to be solicited. Food and equipment had to be arranged.

In the end they had six tons of food shipped from Japan, and that’s after they conserved weight by stripping every item of its excess wrapping. They dried and powdered all the condiments. They even discarded the cardboard in the center of all the toilet paper rolls (Tabei, 139).

From Kathmandu to Camp 5

Junko was part of the advance team that flew to Nepal a month early to purchase an additional four tons of local food. Their shopping overwhelmed the suppliers, so it was a matter of going to the market every day to buy what was available at the moment (Tabei, 142).

Finally, they had fifteen tons of total weight (including food and equipment) to carry to base camp, and the hired Sherpas and porters were concerned. Not because it was so much, but because it was so little. Previous expeditions had carried far more (Tabei, 144). Probably because they had more funding.

To get it all to base camp required hiring 600 porters plus a fleet of yaks. About ten percent of the porters were women, many of whom carried their babies as well as the load they had contracted to carry. The line of people was a kilometer long (Tabei, 147-153).

Most of these people deposited their loads at base camp, received their pay, and went home. But about 70 people were installed at base camp, including the actual climbers, the Sherpas, a much smaller group of porters, and journalists (Tabei, 153). This is why they needed so much food. They were feeding a lot of people.

Each subsequent camp needed less because each stage winnowed down the group to a smaller number of people staying for a shorter period of time. Some of this was expected and planned. (You don’t need as many porters if you don’t carry as much.) But much of it was expected and unplanned. You never knew for sure who would get altitude sickness, who would get injured, who would be ordered to stay behind to care for those who were sick and injured.

Every one of the fifteen women who planned on this trip hoped to make it to the top, knowing full well that most would not. In the end, the success of a trip meant (a) coming home with the same number of people you started with and (b) at least one person made it to the top.

Only two tons were carried to Camp 2, which is still a major operation. By now they were facing well-known problems like serious sunburn. But they were faced problems Sir Edmund Hillary never experienced: Some women didn’t menstruate at all. Others menstruated for two weeks solid. Others had menstrual pain they had not experienced in their ordinary lives (Tabei, 162). All of this had to be managed with supplies on hand, without regular bathrooms, and in an environment where the air was so cold you could get frostbite if you exposed your skin.

And yet they advanced, establishing Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The amount to carry diminished, but it was still far more than those carving out the path could handle. Which meant that people were not just traveling in one direction. They had to go back and forth ferrying the gear. In other words, they were climbing some parts of Everest more than once.

The Avalanche

At six weeks into the climb, Camp 5 was established, but Junko had descended back to Camp 2 when her own personal disaster struck. At half past midnight, she was asleep when a loud crash woke everyone up. Within seconds, she was tossing and turning with an avalanche of snow. An instant later all was silent. She was buried.

In truth, they were extraordinarily lucky. Those who were still upright and mobile moved quickly to dig everyone out. The extraction pulled Junko’s joints loose, and there were many other injuries, but no one was dead. However, a good portion of their food and equipment was under snow. The news was relayed to the team leader back at base camp, and she regretfully said they had no choice but to abandon the climb. She ordered a helicopter sent in for Junko, who was deemed the most badly injured.

It was Junko herself who said no. If she was the most badly injured, then she saw no reason to quit. Her injuries were trivial: just a contusion, some pressure on her chest, and some lingering pain. (These are her words, not mine. I don’t consider any of that trivial.) She argued that it would be far more dangerous to rush down immediately than to stay for a couple of days, recuperate, and dig for the supplies.

Eventually, the team leader conceded. What else could she do? She was at Base Camp. She couldn’t force anyone to go anywhere. The other climbers with Junko concurred with her decision, as did the Sherpas. It was the journalists who disagreed (Tabei, 28-32).

(Here I need to clear up something that confused me: Junko makes a clear distinction between climbers, Sherpas, and journalists. But all of them must have been accomplished climbers, right? Because otherwise how did they get there?)

At any rate, the people Junko calls journalists did not agree with the women that Junko calls climbers. The journalists wanted to go down immediately. Voices were raised. Frustration was expressed. However, Junko notes with some amusement that they cheered up considerably as soon as their cameras were dug out of the snow. Then they started taking pictures and working hard.

(So I guess maybe the difference between a climber and a journalist is the ultimate goal: Climbers care most about climbing. Journalists care most about recording the climb. Without their equipment, they were uninterested.)

The Summit of Everest

Junko was right that Everest could still be conquered. At least by her. The weather, the oxygen, and the sickness got worse the higher they went. More and more people were forced to drop out. After Camp 5, Junko was the sole remaining climber. But she still had one cameraman, and nine Sherpas, including Ane Tsering, the leader of the Sherpa team (Tabei, 180).

After Camp 6, it was just Junko and Ane Tsering. The others retreated back to Camp 5. On the morning of May 16, 1975, Junko and Ane were out of their tents by 5:50 am. They knew it was today or never. They climbed incessantly, resting only when they were belaying the ropes for each other. By 9:40 am, they reached the South Peak, the lower of the two on Everest. They could look straight down one side to Camp 2, many thousands of feet below. The drop on the other side was also death-defying. There was absolutely no room for mistakes (Tabei, 189-192; Roberts).

At 12:30 pm, Junko Tabei stepped up to the very top. She later wrote, “I felt pure joy as my thoughts registered, ‘Here is the summit. I don’t have to climb anymore’” (Tabei, 193).

The peak of Everest is not a place to linger. They took pictures, and they radioed their success down to the others. Junko gathered souvenir stones for the rest of her team. She left a green thermos and the Nepali and Japanese flags as a monument to their joint achievement. By 1:30, they started back down.

It is a not-so-fun fact that 90 percent of all climbing accidents occur on the descent. This is partly because people are less cautious and make more mistakes. It is also because coming down is genuinely harder. The handholds are different. You have to look down at the drop instead of up at the sky. In Junko’s own words, “Humans were not made for this. Climbing, yes; descending, no” (Tabei, 195).

She and Ane were back at Camp 6 by 4:30. They rested there for less than an hour before moving on to Camp 5 where the Sherpas and the cameraman waited for them. It took another two days to get everyone back together at base camp. Two days is trivial compared to how long it took to get up, but they had far less stuff to ferry. Much of the stuff that they had not consumed was just left where it was.

One of the modern-day issues on Everest is the amount of junk cluttering it up because of previous expeditions, like Junko Tabei’s. Here’s what she wrote about it years later: “In 1975 I had no idea that the equipment we left behind on Everest would be considered garbage in the future, partly because we were following suit of all the expeditions prior to ours. Discarded items like oxygen bottles and tents were not considered a wrong-doing.”

Only a few dozen people had ever to set foot up there. But by the 1990s, dozens of people might arrive in a single day, and all of them had tents and oxygen bottles and other things they no longer wanted. The garbage problem was real. Junko came to regret leaving what she did at the South Peak and Camp 6. She wrote, “I cannot change those occurrences, but I am the first to admit they make my voice stronger in encouraging as many people as possible to keep mountains clean” (Tabei, 197).

In the Shadow of Everest

As the sole team member and first woman to make it to the top of Everest, Junko returned as a media sensation. She found this more exhausting than Everest itself, but the book and photo exhibitions paid off every team member’s debt (Tabei, 208).

By 1979, three women had climbed Everest: Junko, plus a Chinese woman and a Polish woman. There was a media conference to celebrate the three of them and they were asked Why Everest? Junko said “for myself and my team.” Pan Duo said “For the Republic of China.” And Wanda Rutkiewicz said “for women’s liberation.” This was a revolution in Junko’s thinking because she had never really thought about herself as anything other than a person who wanted to climb mountains. In the aftermath, she realized that her status as the first woman on Everest gave her influence and power (Tabei, 210, 360). She campaigned for keeping mountains clean and encouraging women to be fearless and pursue their dreams.

She was also very far from done with mountaineering. In 1992, Junko was also the first woman to complete the Seven Summit challenge, which means climbing the highest mountain on every continent. She led guided tours of many mountains, especially the ones that could be done without specialized training. She began working on another goal: to climb the highest mountain in each country of the world.

In 2011, an earthquake caused a tsunami which caused a nuclear accident in the area of Junko’s birth: Fukushima, Japan. Junko was not there, but she raised money and awareness for the people affected by the disaster. When she heard that the people in refugee camps were suffering for lack of things to do, she began organizing trips for them to climb Mount Fuji, which involved raising a lot of money since Mount Fuji is not in the Fukushima area.

Her last mountaineering event was in July 2016 when she led a group of high schoolers from Fukushima up Mount Fuji. She didn’t tell them that she had been driven there straight from the hospital where she was being treated for cancer. She died only a few months later on October 20, 2016. She had climbed the highest peak in 70 countries (Roberts).

It was less than a year after she had traveled to Nepal once again, and climbed to a mere 3900 meters to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of her famous climb. When she looked up at Everest, she said “How could I have climbed that mountain? Young and bold I was…” (Tabei, 347).

I have a special thank you today to Erika who signed up as a Patreon supporter and to Kate who made a one-time donation on Buy Me a Coffee. People like Erika and Kate help me keep telling the stories of historical women who climbed their own metaphorical mountains. If you’re able to contribute to the cause, you will be much appreciated! Subscribers on Patreon and Substack can get benefits like the weekly newsletter and bonus podcast episodes and ad-free episodes. If you’d rather do a one time donation on Buy Me a Coffee, that’s much appreciated too.

Selected Sources

New York Times. “Japanese Woman Overcame Injury to Climb Everest.” The New York Times, 18 May 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/05/18/archives/japanese-woman-overcame-injury-to-climb-everest.html. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Roberts, Sam. “Junko Tabei, First Woman to Conquer Everest, Dies at 77 (Published 2016).” The New York Times, 26 Oct. 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/27/world/asia/junko-tabei-dead.html. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Ross, Delaney . “Junko Tabei, First Female to Summit Mount Everest, Dies.” 22 Oct. 2016.

Tabei, Junko, et al. Honouring High Places : The Mountain Life of Junko Tabei. [Victoria, British Columbia], Rocky Mountain Books, 2017.

Wilkinson, Freddie. “Climbing Mount Everest, Facts and Information.” 22 Jan. 2019.