"THERE WAS NEVER A QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT I WANTED TO CLIMB THAT MOUNTAIN, NO MATTER WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAID."

It was the morning of May 16, 1975, and 35-year-old Junko Tabei, a Japanese housewife and mother, dug her spiked boots into the ice and crawled across a slick, narrow ridge. Just four foot nine, Junko was standing almost 30,000 feet above sea level, and her destination was only 40 feet away: the South Summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. On that freezing morning, Junko became the first woman to ever reach it.

Junko was born in a small town in northern Japan. She fell in love with climbing at 10 years old on a school field trip. She and her classmates hiked up two tall peaks, Mount Asahi and Mount Chausu. She longed to climb more, but her family was poor, and mountain climbing wasn’t something they could afford. It also wasn’t seen as an activity for girls, especially small ones. When she went off to college, she joined several climbing clubs, where she was almost always the only woman. After she graduated, she founded the Ladies Climbing Club of Japan and began to scale peaks with other female climbers.

In 1975 Junko and 14 other women planned the first all-woman Everest expedition, with Junko as leader. The women and their sherpas (Himalayan people who assist climbers) completed a long and rigorous training process before embarking on their record-setting journey. Junko’s husband and three-year-old daughter cheered for her as she set off to climb to the top of the world, but many people were shocked that a mother would leave her family behind to do anything, let alone climb a mountain! “We were told we should be raising children instead,” Junko said.

But Junko was determined, and her family’s support was all she needed. The women set off, well-prepared and excited, but the journey was dangerous. One cold morning on the mountain, Junko woke up to a thunderous sound: an avalanche. Soon a massive wave of snow, rocks, and ice had buried Junko and several others. Junko was unconscious for six full minutes. Her fellow climbers pulled her out of the snow and revived her with an oxygen mask. She was bruised and battered, but she continued on.

When she finally reached the top, Junko peered down thousands of feet into the valleys of Tibet. She was exhausted and relieved to have made it. She was also very proud. Junko made history when she reached the top of Everest, but she didn’t stop there. In 1992 she became the first woman to climb the “Seven Summits,” the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, including Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa and Mt. Aconcagua in South America. Junko is in her 70s now, but she still climbs at least three or four mountains each year, and has no plans to stop.