Mt. Everest 2005: Japanese/Chinese Women expedition: Honoring Junko Tabei

Update

The Japanese and Chinese women climbers will combine forces on Everest in 2005 to form a joint expedition to honor the fact that 30 years ago the first woman summiting Mt Everest; her name was  Junko Tabei. The Chinese are expected to include at least 2 women who have summited Everest before. It is also expected that this expedition will help with the attempt to measure the height of Everest! The snow cover on Everest is melting, however the official height is not expected to change. It is unclear how they expect to measure the mountain. There are not GPS markers on the north side of Everest, which combined with the thin air, results in very poor GPS reading from Sat phones and other traditional GPS measurement devices according to the experts.

The Japanese has 5 members lead by Shiori Hashimoto, a at Tokyo Women's Medical University.

Junko Tabei: (Japan) became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest on 5/16/75 via the South-East Ridge route.

Junko was born Fukushima Prefecture JAPAN - 1939, went to Showa Women's University  and is married with 2 children. She says she was attracted to mountain climbing by the experience of climbing Mt. Nasu with a teacher when she was 10 years old. She began climbing around 1962 after graduating from Showa Women's University where she studied English literature

She formed women's mountain climbing club "Ladies Climbing Club: JAPAN (LCC)" in 1969. Junko became the first woman to reach the Everest peak in 1975. Since then, she has climbed many mountains all over the world, and is the first woman to have achieved the summits of the highest peaks on all seven continents.

She still climbs at least 3-4 mountains per year. She currently is the director of Himalayan Adventure Trust of Japan (HAT-J), an organization dedicated preserving the mountain environment.

Her most notable Summit climb of late: Muztagh Ata 2001.

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