For a long time Everest Trekking was seen as a male dominated pursuit, with the majority of climbers to have made the peak being men. But there are several notable female climbers who have successfully trekked from Everest Base Camp to the summit.
The first woman to trek from Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5,360 metres to the summit at 8,848 metres above sea level was Junko Tabei. She had to conquer more than the formidable mountain; she first had to overcome the prejudices of the age. Japan s deeply conservative society of thirty years ago would not accept that Junko had any business even attempting to trek up Everest. “Some people really tried to stop me, but I knew I could do it. In the 1970s, in Japanese culture, the status of women was much lower than it is now. On May 16th 1975 Junko proved her critics wrong, becoming the first woman to reach the summit of the world s tallest mountain.
When it comes to climbing mountains, Junko Tabei is a bit of a traditionalist herself, criticising the infrastructure that has been established on Everest since the days of her climb. She has doubts about the services of Sherpas, who tend to the needs of the climbing teams at Everest Base Camp, trekking up the mountain ahead of the expeditions to fix ropes and ladder bridges across the crevasses, and making repairs to the route. It s undeniable that anyone who takes the Everest Base Camp Trek or makes a summit bid of Everest is appreciative of the expertise of the Sherpas and mountain porters, but Junko argues that this is not in the spirit of the true climbing experience: “When we climbed, everything had to be done by our own team .
Junko has continued climbing long into her sixties and in 1992 was the first woman to complete the prestigious Seven Summits series of climbs. Completing this challenge means climbing the highest peak in each of the world’s seven continents.
Another woman to complete the Seven Summits is Oh Eun Sun, a Korean mountaineer who has made this new this year for her attempt to conquer all of the eight thousanders. This means summiting all fourteen of the world’s peaks above 8000 metres. A select group of just 17 climbers has been verified as having achieved this feat. Her successful Everest Trek was in 2004, and in August this year she completed her thirteenth of the eight thousanders: Gasherbrum (8,080 meters) in Pakistan.
Other famous female mountaineers whose names you might hear on the Everest Base Camp Trek include Lydia Brady, Alison Hargreaves, and Rebecca Stevens. Rebecca Stevens was the first British woman to reach the summit of Everest in 1993, and she wrote about her experiences in her book “On Top of the World.” Lydia Brady from New Zealand has been “on top” twice, with a wait of twenty years between her expeditions of 1988 and 2008. If this isn’t remarkable enough, spare a thought for Alison Hargreaves, who not only made her Everest Trek without the assistance of supplementary bottled oxygen in 1995, but also conquered the mountain without backup, as a solo climber: a real example of “sisters doing it for themselves.”
Author Resource:-
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run the Everest Base Camp Trek (http://www.mountainkingdoms.com/itinerary_info.ihtml?schedid=919) for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours to destinations worldwide.
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