Naomi Uemura

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Naomi Uemura (植村直己 Uemura Naomi, February 12, 1941 - February 13?, 1984) was a Japanese adventurer who accomplished some of the greatest expeditions in history. He was particularly well known for doing alone what had previously been achieved only with large teams. For example, he was the first person ever to reach the North Pole solo, the first ever to raft the Amazon solo, and the first ever to climb Mount McKinley solo. While still in his 20s, Uemura had soloed Mount Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. He walked the length of Japan. He was a member of the first Japanese expedition to climb Mount Everest.

Uemura was born on Feb. 12, 1941 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Shy by nature, he began climbing in college in the hope that mountaineering would increase his self-confidence. To this day, he is remembered as not only a gifted climber and a driven adventurer, but also as a gentle, self-effacing man who cared about others. In the words of Jonathan Waterman,

[Just as remarkable] as his solo achievements was his sincere modesty and unassuming nature. Another part of his greatness lay in his deep interest in everyone he met.

Like many great adventurers, Uemura gave frequent public lectures and wrote about his travels. His adventure books for children were popular in Japan.

[edit] The Pole

Uemura wrote that he almost gave up twice during his 1978 North Pole trip. On the fourth day of his trek, a polar bear invaded his camp, ate his supplies, and poked his nose against the sleeping bag where Uemura lay tense and motionless. When the bear returned the next day, Uemura was ready and shot him dead. On the 35th day of the trip, Uemura had hunkered down on an ice floe with his malamutes, when there was the roar of breaking ice and the floe cracked into pieces. He and his dogs were stranded on a tossing island of ice. After a night of terror, Uemura found a three foot wide ice bridge and raced to safety.

He persevered, and became the first ever to reach the Pole solo.

Describing his 57-day push, he wrote, "What drove me to continue then was the thought of countless people who had helped and supported me, and the knowledge that I could never face them if I gave up."

[edit] Mount McKinley

In August 1970, Uemura climbed Mount McKinley solo, becoming the first person ever to reach the top alone. He did this quickly and with a light pack (8 days up, versus an average of 14 days or so; 55 pound pack, versus an average that's probably twice that). August is after the end of the normal climbing season. While the weather he faced was not terrible, the mountain was almost empty — only four other people on it. Though many people have climbed McKinley alone since Uemura, most do it in the middle of the climbing season and are able to rope up with others in a pinch.

Uemura dreamed of soloing across Antarctica and climbing that continent's highest peak, Vinson Massif. In preparation, he did a three year solo dog run from Greenland to Alaska, then prepared to climb McKinley again solo in winter.

The difficulty of a winter ascent will be difficult to understand for people unfamiliar with Alaskan climbing. Nobody had successfully climbed any large Alaskan peak in winter until 1968, when Gregg Blomberg organized an expedition that got to the top of McKinley (Blomberg himself did not summit). This team lost one member and the rest of them almost died in a storm on the way down. Team member Art Davidson's book about the climb was named after that storm — Minus 148°.

Those unfamiliar with glacier travel will not appreciate the danger associated with even short treks across the ice. Glaciers are broken with cracks, called crevasses, that are often covered with snow and not visible. You could be marching along and then punch through this covering layer and fall 150 feet. If you are roped to others, you have a good chance of surviving. But what do you do if you are climbing solo?

Uemura had developed a 'self-rescue' device, bamboo poles tied over his shoulders that would span any crevasse into which he fell and allow him to pull himself out. He planned a very light run, with only a 40 pound pack plus sled. He kept his gear light by planning to sleep in snow caves, so he would not need a tent. He also skimped on fuel and planned to eat cold food.

He began his climb in early February, 1984, and reached the summit on February 12. Much later, climbers found the Japanese flag that he left at the summit.

On February 13, he spoke by radio with Japanese photographers who were flying over the mountain, saying that he had made the top and descended back to 18,000 feet. He planned to reach base camp in another two days. He never made it.

There appeared to be high winds near the top, and the temperature was around -50° F. People presumed Uemura was waiting in a snow cave for better conditions, but there was no way to know. Planes flew over the mountain but did not see him that day. He was spotted around 16,600 feet the next day (presumably on the ridge just above the headwall). Then big clouds came in and it became impossible to check on him for several days.

It was likely that Uemura was running out of fuel at this point but he was such a great climber that nobody wanted to insult him by rushing in with a rescue. Doug Geeting, one of the bush pilots who had been 'Uemura spotting' over the previous week, said "If it was anybody else, we'd have somebody [a rescuer] on the mountain already."

Friends, rangers, and fans were less calm on February 20. The weather had cleared and Uemura was nowhere to be found. There was no sign of his earlier camp at 16,600, and no evidence that caches left by other climbers nearby had been disturbed. The man had vanished.

Two experienced climbers were dropped at 14,000' to begin a search. Though another storm came in, they stayed on the mountain until February 26, finding a cave in which Uemura had stayed at 14,000' on the way up but no sign of the climber himself. A diary found in the cave revealed that Uemura had left gear there in order to lighten his load on the summit push. He had also left his self-rescue poles back at 9500', knowing he was past the worst crevasse fields. Most people figured he had fallen on his descent of the headwall and been hurt, died, and was buried by snow. However, he might have made it to 14,200' (the base of the headwall) and fallen into one of the crevasses there. They are not so numerous as lower on the mountain, but still dangerous.

A group of Japanese climbers arrived to look for the body. They failed, though they did locate much of the man's gear at 17,200.

The diary found in the 14,000' cave has been published in Japanese and English. It describes the brutal conditions that Uemura suffered — the crevasse falls, -40° weather, frozen meat, and inadequate shelter. He also showed himself to be in good spirits, and documented the songs he sang to stay focused on his task.

The last entry read

"I wish I could sleep in a warm sleeping bag. No matter what happens I am going to climb McKinley."

McKinley was successfully climbed solo in winter by Vern Tejas in 1988.

Amusingly, many sources seem to think that Uemura was a woman, probably because of his given name. His accomplishments are frequently listed as great feminist triumphs. The website "jew-feminist-resources" seems convinced that he was both female and Jewish.

[edit] Sources

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