Word: uemura
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...when he was making his first solo climb of an Alpine peak, Mont Blanc in France, Naomi Uemura found himself tumbling into a crevasse that had been hidden by a layer of snow. "I thought, 'What a place to die,' " the Japanese explorer later recalled." 'So far away from home.' " But he managed to struggle out, and thereafter on big climbs, he always carried a pair of sturdy 17-ft.-long bamboo poles to test the snow...
...were the only traces late last week of the celebrated mountain climber. He was reported missing and feared lost on the west face of North America's highest peak, Mount McKinley in Alaska. His disappearance came just days after a spectacular success: on Feb. 12, his 43rd birthday, Uemura had become the first climber to make a solo ascent of the 20,320-ft. peak in midwinter...
Radio contact with Uemura abruptly ceased the next day, possibly because subzero temperatures had weakened the batteries of his Citizens Band radio. On Feb. 16 the mountaineer was spotted by a glacier pilot near a snow-hole bivouac at 16,400 ft. Uemura waved, a prearranged signal that all was well. When he failed to reappear by Feb. 19, rescue efforts were begun, but they were frustrated by thick clouds, high winds and blinding snow. Two of Uemura's friends, Climbers Jim Wickwire and Eiho Otani, were dropped onto the mountain by helicopter at the 14,300-ft. level...
Indeed, the diminutive (5-ft. 3-in., 135-lb.) Uemura had been facing outsize dangers for nearly two decades. The unassuming farmer's son took up mountain climbing while studying agriculture at Tokyo's Meiji University. He became a national hero in 1970 when, as a member of the first Japanese team to successfully climb Mount Everest, he was the first to reach the 29,028-ft. peak. But his most rewarding feats were those performed, as he once put it, "in all the splendor of solitude." He explained, "It is a test of myself, and one thing...
...Uemura was burrowed deep inside, playing dead. The next day when the bear returned, Uemura killed it. Between his climbs and his epic journeys, Uemura wrote several books about his adventures...