Explorer and mountaineer, born in Tajima region, C Japan. He started climbing as a student at Meiji University, Tokyo. After solo ascents of Mont Blanc, Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, and Mt McKinley, he reached the summit of Everest with Teruo Matsura in 1970, becoming the first person to reach the highest peak on five continents. In 1978 he made a solo dog-sled journey of 450 mi from Ellesmere I to the North Pole, then immediately undertook a 1600 mi NS traverse of Greenland using 16 dogs. He led the Japanese attempt to climb Mt Everest in the winter of 1981. He completed the first winter ascent of the West Buttress Route of Mt McKinley, and is presumed to have died during the descent, although his body was never found.
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. 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.
Uemura was born on Feb. 12, 1941 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.
Like many great adventurers, Uemura gave frequent public lectures and wrote about his travels.
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. 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 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."
Mount McKinley
In August 1970, Uemura climbed Mount McKinley solo, becoming the first person ever to reach the top alone. 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). 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Friends, rangers, and fans were less calm on February 20.
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.
A group of Japanese climbers arrived to look for the body.
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.
The last entry read
"I wish I could sleep in a warm sleeping bag.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.
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