Mount Everest and the World
Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
Climb every mountain, Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow 'Till you find your dream
Follow every rainbow 'Till you find your dream
Junko Tabei
took those song lyrics to heart. The first woman to reach the summit of Mount
Everest – the world's
highest peak – the Japanese mountaineer traversed the globe, climbing the
tallest mountains she could find in more than 70 countries.
With the start of the New Year, SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug
and Patti Kishel can’t think of a better role model to inspire everyone to
achieve their dreams.
Not only did Tabei successfully scale Mount Everest on May
16, 1975, but in 1992 she became the first woman to reach the top of every one
of the Seven Summits –
the highest mountain on each continent.
An environmentalist, Tabei saw firsthand the damage being
done to the world's majestic mountains by the debris left behind by climbing
teams and worked with environmental groups to eliminate this. As the
chairperson of the Himalayan Adventure
Trust of Japan, one of her main activities was educating people about the
need to preserve Earth's natural spaces.
Himalayan Adventure Trust of Japan
SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti are in awe of Tabei's
determination. During the Everest ascent an avalanche hit her camp at night
when she was sleeping and she was knocked unconscious and covered in snow.
Pulled to safety by her Sherpa guide, Tabei insisted on continuing the climb
even though others wanted to turn back. Despite injuries, Tabei pushed ahead,
finally reaching the mountain's 29,029 feet-high summit where she planted the
Japanese flag.
A woman climber in a man's world,
Tabei didn't ask for any concessions, nor did she expect any. Describing the
harsh mountain environments she often encountered, she said, “The winds never
calm down just because women are climbing, Nature’s conditions are the same for
everybody.”
Told numerous times that mountain climbing wasn't for women
and that she should "just take care of your kids,” Tabei, a wife and
mother, couldn't resist the lure of the mountains and continued to climb
throughout her life even after being diagnosed with cancer.
Mountain climber Michael Fordham,
who’s also a surfer and the author of The Book of Surfing, understands this lure. He says climbing
and surfing both have that “moment when you seem to step outside yourself and
your body appears to act instinctively, your movements seeming to flow without
any premeditation." He writes that there’s a “deep instinct to dance with
the elements, to play in the beauty and menace of the planet."
Though she was less than
five-feet-tall, Junko Tabei, who died October 20, 2016, at the age of 77, was a
giant in the world's climbing and environmental communities...and her dance with
the elements was unsurpassed!
Pictured from left to right are Masanobu, Junko and
Shinya Tabei in 2013 on Junko's annual ascent of Mt. Fuji (3776m) with a group
of students from Fukushima, Japan. [Photo] Tabei family collection
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Sunny
Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material.
Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com
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