BURSTJapanese climbers Takeshi (Tak) Tani and Toshiki Kusano recently climbed Mount Alberta in the Canadian Rockies, 100 years after the first ascent by a team of climbers from Japan. “It was about honouring the deep cultural and historical ties between Canadian and Japanese mountaineering, and about passing the torch of the alpinism to the next generation,” Tani told Bob Covey for the Jasper Local – read more here.
The first ascent of Mount Alberta took place on July 21, 1925 by climbers with the Japanese Alpine Club, led by Yuko Maki and including S. Hashimoto, H. Hatano, T. Hayakawa, Y. Mita, and N. Okabe. The team was guided by three Swiss climbers, Hans Fuhrer, H. Kohler, and J. Weber. The team arrived in Vancouver in July 1925 and traveled by rail to Jasper. Outfitter Fred Brewster provided 39 horses to transport supplies to the base of the mountain for the month-long expedition.
After 16 hours of climbing on July 21, the nine-man team reached the summit at 7:30 p.m. The planted a monogrammed ice axe with the initials “MTH” (for Marquis Mori Tatsu Hosokawa) in a summit cairn alongside a tin can containing expedition details. The team spent an uncomfortable night on a ledge just below the summit before descending over 15 hours to their base camp for a three-day rest.
The climb gained fame not only for its achievement but also for the legend of the ice axe, rumoured to be a silver gift from Crown Prince Michi (later Emperor Hirohito). In 1948, Americans Fred Ayers and John Oberlin, expecting a silver axe, retrieved it during the second ascent, only to find it was a standard Swiss-made axe. The axe, broken during retrieval, was later preserved, with its parts reunited in 1997 after efforts by the Japanese and Canadian alpine climbers. It’s now displayed at the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum and Archives.
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