Defying the Avalanche: How Junko Tabei Became the First Woman to Summit Mount Everest

In the spring of 1975, a 35-year-old mother from Tokyo stood beneath the towering ice seracs of the Khumbu Glacier, preparing to challenge the highest mountain on Earth. In post-war Japan, conservative societal expectations dictated that married women should dedicate themselves entirely to domestic life. Men routinely told Junko Tabei that women belonged in the kitchen raising children, not on the frozen faces of the Himalayas.

Tabei’s response was simple, quiet, and uncompromising: she established the Ladies Climbing Club: Japan (LCC) in 1969 with the motto: “Let’s go on an overseas expedition by ourselves.”

Six years later, on May 16, 1975, Tabei would shatter centuries of patriarchal prejudice, standing alone atop the 8,848-meter summit of Mount Everest as the first woman in human history to reach the roof of the planet.

The Women Who Sewed Their Own Gear

Organizing the 1975 Japanese Women’s Everest Expedition was an uphill battle long before the team ever reached Nepal. Corporate sponsors repeatedly rejected Tabei’s proposals, dismissing the idea of an all-female Himalayan expedition as reckless folly.

Refusing to surrender, the fifteen women took matters into their own hands. They held bake sales, taught evening classes, and pooled their personal savings. Tabei collected discarded velvet seat fabric from Tokyo car dealerships and stitched heavy winter gloves on her home sewing machine. Eventually, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Nippon Television stepped in with co-sponsorship, enabling the team to secure a coveted climbing permit for the classic South Col route.

The Avalanche at Camp II

In late March 1975, the expedition established Base Camp at 5,350 meters on the Khumbu Glacier. Tabei, serving as deputy leader, led from the front, coordinating logistical movements through the treacherous crevasses of the Khumbu Icefall and up the Western Cwm.

On the night of May 4, disaster struck with terrifying ferocity. At 12:30 AM, a colossal avalanche calved from the hanging glaciers of the Nuptse wall, thundering directly into Camp II at 6,500 meters.

The blast of wind and pulverized snow crushed the team’s tents. Tabei was trapped beneath heavy nylon and tons of dense snow, suffocating in pitch darkness. She lost consciousness before her Sherpa guides desperately dug through the debris with their bare hands, dragging her battered body out into the freezing night.

Tabei suffered severe contusions across her back and legs, rendering her unable to stand or walk for two full days. Team doctors and expedition members urged her to abandon the mountain and descend to Base Camp for medical treatment. But Tabei’s iron determination prevailed. After three days of strict rest inside a rescue tent, she took her first painful steps and declared that the expedition would continue.

The Razor Ridge to the Hillary Step

By mid-May, Tabei and Sirdar Ang Tsering Sherpa had reached Camp IV on the wind-lashed South Col at 7,920 meters. On May 16, at 5:00 AM, in temperatures dipping below -30°C, the pair launched their final summit assault into the Death Zone.

Climbing with open-circuit oxygen equipment, they moved steadily past the Balcony and arrived at the South Summit (8,750m). Ahead stretched the most terrifying section of the entire mountain: the knife-edge snow arête leading to the Hillary Step. On their right, an uninterrupted 8,000-foot precipice plunged down the Kangshung Face into Tibet; on their left, the vertical void of the Southwest Face dropped into Nepal.

Tabei later recalled that the ridge was so narrow and unstable with fragile rime cornices that she had to crawl sideways, straddling the arête with one leg in Nepal and one in Tibet.

Arriving at the Hillary Step—a 40-foot vertical wall of rock and ice—Tabei found that earlier fixed ropes were buried under rotten snow. Using every ounce of technical strength, she jammed her boots into a narrow rock chimney between the granite and the snow cornice, levering herself upward inch by inch until she crested the top.

The Apex of the World

Beyond the Hillary Step lay the gentle snow slopes leading to the summit crest. At 12:30 PM on May 16, 1975, Junko Tabei and Ang Tsering Sherpa stepped onto the 8,848-meter summit of Mount Everest.

Standing on the narrow snow platform where no woman had ever stood before, Tabei wept softly into her oxygen mask. Looking out across the vast curvature of the Earth spanning the peaks of Nepal and Tibet, she felt no sense of arrogant conquest, only deep humility and profound gratitude for the mountain that had allowed her to stand upon its crest.

Tabei’s historic triumph resonated across the globe, inspiring millions of women to pursue high-altitude mountaineering, scientific exploration, and athletic excellence. In 1992, she became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits.

Until her death in 2016, Junko Tabei remained a passionate advocate for mountain environmental protection, proving that courage, quiet humility, and unshakeable conviction can overcome the highest barriers on Earth.