Nearly 50 years ago, a Japanese Women's Everest Expedition (JWEE) team was on its way to climb Mount Everest, and it faced an avalanche. While staying at a high altitude on May 4, 1975, the team was less than a week away from their scheduled arrival atop Everest when the mishap happened.
Still, the team braved the avalanche and Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the first female to conquer the world's highest peak. It took the team five years. Ms Tabei subsequently said in her biography, "There was no way I was leaving the mountain," according to CNN.
Eiko Hisano headed the JWEE team, consisting of 15 women from a variety of occupations. In May 1975, the team used the same path as Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay took in 1953.
An avalanche hit the team's camp at 20,700 feet (6,300 metres) on May 4. Ms Tabei and five other climbers were trapped beneath the snow. No one was hurt, but Ms Tabei passed out until she was rescued by sherpas. She rested and healed in two days. Then she went up the mountain with her squad.
The team intended to send two women to the top, but their sherpas were able to carry enough oxygen for only one climber because of altitude sickness. And, Ms Hisano suggested Ms Tabei finish the ascent.
Ms Tabei reached the Everest summit on May 16, 1975, 12 days after the avalanche, accompanied by her sherpa guide, Ang Tsering. She was the 36th person and first woman to reach the summit of Everest.
Who Was Junko Tabei?
Born on September 22, 1939, in Miharu, near Fukushima, Japan, Junko Tabei fell in love with hiking when she was only 11 years old. She graduated from Showa Women's University in Tokyo in 1962 and became the first woman to climb Mount Everest in 1975. Shortly after, she founded the women's climbing group, the Joshi-Tohan Club.
Following the devastating earthquakes that struck the country in 2001, she started planning yearly excursions for children to visit Fuji, Japan's tallest peak. Ms Tabei established the Himalayan Adventure Fund, an organisation dedicated to environmental conservation, in 2010.
She wrote seven books from 1996 to 2008. Ms Tabei had climbed at least 70 of the highest mountains on Earth.
She died in 2016 at the age of 77. Her motto for life was "Do not give up. Keep on your quest."
