| Women are limited in their understanding of the male need to constantly prove their manhood. In battle, at work, in the home, community, and world, on a gaming table or mountain top, masculinity is driven to alpha heights of planning, pain, and power.
To us the risk, cost, and time involved seems like a frivolous adolescent addiction to the testosterone gods. And yet their games go on and on and on. And if there are no teammates, there still must be an audience of some type—otherwise there’s no proof of accomplishment. Even the man’s word in such cases is not accepted by his peers.
In 1970, a noted Japanese skier, then about 37 years of age, challenged himself to ski the face of Mt. Everest—tallest mountain peak on the planet bordering China and India, and the result of tectonic plates vying for more territory. At a height of 26,000 feet, just reaching the summit of the continually upward thrusting crust of the earth was a task that many before him had failed to achieve.
Yuichiro Miura and a caravan of 800 local and Japanese shirpas began a journey on foot that would take many months and unexpected detours before the party’s eventual arrival at the summit. Along the way, many of the local shirpas branched off to join trade caravans when the supplies they carried were no longer needed by the ascending group. Among the remaining shirpas was a young boy literally following in his father’s footsteps for some on-the-job training in the family’s $1 per day business as expert climbers, packers, and if necessary—rescuers.
In Mr. Miura’s diary, he recounted his reasons for embarking on such an arduous and dangerous journey. “In the big city (Tokyo), I lost the words of dreams.” Fully aware of the possibility he could perish on the face of “The Mother Goddess of the World,” his reverent title for the world’s best-known mountain, he claimed that “challenge is what makes men, and there is no challenge without risk of failure.”
As planned, the caravan left civilization and many barefooted shirpas behind in the capital city of Kathmandu and began their final ascent into the frigid, hostile realms where just breathing was their number one priority. The final three miles of their journey to the top of the world would take forty days.
Mr. Miura and his remnant entourage of about thirteen men and a boy awoke one morning to find their planned ascension route blocked by a massive ice flow from one of the Goddess’ many shifting glaciers. Scouts were sent from base camp to find a way over the flow, as circumvention was impossible. During their search, a portion of the gargantuan, unstable white chunks of doom collapsed, entrapping six shirpas in its frozen shroud—one of whom was the father of the apprentice boy.
Recovery and mourning of the dead could have caused the party to abort its mission, but all agreed the lost lives would have been in vain. It was too late to turn back. Mr. Miura knew he would succeed or die when he finally strapped on his skies and the drag chute that he hoped would slow his descent on the icy forty degree slope he faced in spite of his fear.
From zero to sixty in seconds, Mr. Miura’s descent instantly came under the dominance of forces of gravity cooperating with frozen water crystals to pull him down the slippery slide. He skimmed the treacherous surface on his horizontal stilts as he attempted to breathe and avoid outcroppings, crevices, and other potentially fatal obstructions. Even with the chute billowing behind him, he was quickly out of control and at the mercy of the elements ensconced long before his arrival there.
His excellent physical condition was of little use against the odds he challenged, and at 6,000 feet of his downhill trip, he fell but didn’t stop. His body became the ski for the next 1,600 feet when those attached to his boots betrayed him by disintegrating during the tumble. The chute was ripped away as he body-skied over an escarpment and continued, now unwillingly, down the slope. At last a patch of trapped snow provided enough friction to halt his wild ride, just yards from the edge of a deathly ledge. He lay there, “wondering if I was alive,” in the foreboding presence of the unimpressed Mother Goddess.
In the 2.5 minutes it took to accomplish his goal, I wondered as I watched the documentary if Mr. Miura’s manhood was permanently validated or would he have to “prove” again? How did his method of proving insure honor to those left behind? At what expense will the new risk come if skiing Mt. Everest was not proof enough? If asked, what would the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters affected by his quest for manhood say? What did the Mother Goddess say?
Some of my questions were answered when I Googled “Yuichiro Miura” following the program. Now over 70, he’s still going strong as Japan’s most celebrated (again) alpinist! And I’m still wondering what’s the point? When does reasonable replace addictions to applause? Where’s the significance in the grander scheme of a totally neutral Cosmos?
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