Mountaineer Eiko Noguchi appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on June 22nd. She talked about how she became a mountaineer like her father, Ken Noguchi, who was the youngest person in the world to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents, and about her dreams for the future.
"When I was little, my father was in the mountains for more than half the year and wasn't home." But whenever he had a day off, he would say, "Let's go to the mountains," and take me out. "I wasn't a child who loved mountains or nature that much. But I wanted to make time to see my father, so I tried my best to go to the mountains." My first mountain climb was in the Yatsugatake Mountains when I was eight years old. My father asked me, "Do you want to see snow?" and I answered "Yes" because I wanted to see snow, but when we went, it was a blizzard in the Yatsugatake Mountains, minus 17 degrees Celsius. "You could see the snow, but there was nothing but snow, it was a pretty harsh environment." We made it to the mountain hut, and just when I thought I could do it, my father told me we should go down. "There are things you can and cannot do in this world. If we go any further today, we will be doing something we cannot do, so let's go back," he explained. The next morning, I learned from the news that there had been a person who had been lost while trying to reach the summit of the Yatsugatake Mountains. "Even though it started like this, my father taught me good things in the mountains, and that's one of the reasons why I came to love the mountains so much."
The most challenging mountain I've ever climbed was Lobuche Peak (6119 meters) in the Himalayas, which I summited last September. I was told that climbing in the Himalayas in September is dangerous because it's monsoon season, but that was the only date available. Driven by a strong desire to climb a mountain over 6000 meters, I discussed it with the Sherpas and made the decision. My father also agreed and we climbed together, but on the day of our summit attempt, all the conditions were right for an avalanche. "Looking back, I think it was the scariest mountain of my life. Because I decided to go, my father and the Sherpas came along with me. I was responsible for everyone's lives. I wonder if I had considered all of that properly at the time. I learned firsthand how naive my thinking about mountains was, and I'm glad we all returned safely, but I don't think I'll ever go to a peak (in the Himalayas) at this time of year again. It was the first and last time."
She has been volunteering since junior high school for an NPO run by her father. "It's a project to deliver unused school bags from Japan to children in the Himalayas. When we give the school bags to everyone, they are so happy that the moment they put them on, they jump around and run with huge smiles on their faces, and that makes me so happy." She has also taken relief supplies and clothes to villages that were swept away by floods caused by the melting of glacial lakes. In Japan, she and her father delivered sleeping bags and set up a tent village for volunteers after the earthquake on the Noto Peninsula. When she goes to Noto, people thank her for helping them with the sleeping bags.
"In the future, I want to run an environmental school that uses nature experiences." I want children to learn through their five senses. There are many mountains I want to climb, such as Aconcagua in South America. "No matter how many mountains you climb, you can never reach the top."
