The Climber
The first woman to stand on the summit of Everest went on to lead over forty all-female expeditions — and has a mountain range and an asteroid named after her.
Born into a small printing family in northern Japan, this episode's subject became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, at a time when mountaineering was treated as an almost exclusively male pursuit.
She didn't stop at one summit. Over the following decades she led dozens of all-women mountaineering expeditions around the world and became a vocal advocate for environmental protection in the mountains she loved.
Her legacy now stretches well beyond Earth's highest peak — she has a mountain range on the far side of the world named after her, and an asteroid discovered decades later carries her name into the solar system.
Episode references
- Japan Society Boston — Junko Tabei biography
- The Conversation — 50 years since Tabei's Everest summit
- National Geographic — Obituary: first woman to climb Everest
- NPR — Japanese climber Junko Tabei, first woman to conquer Everest, dies
- Women in Exploration — Junko Tabei timeline
Compiled from the show's publicly listed episode notes.
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