Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb the world’s highest peak, has died at age 77. She died on Thursday at a hospital outside of Tokyo.
The mountaineer, who was diagnosed with cancer 4 years ago, did not stop mountaineering.
Tabei, who reached the 2,900-foot summit of Mount Everest wheb she was 35 years old, also conquered the so-called ‘Seven Summits’- becoming the first woman to scale the highest mountains in seven continents which comprises of Kilimanjaro, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Carstensz, Pyramid, Vinson and Everest.
According to her last CNN interview, she said ‘‘I don’t know how or when I’m going to die. But I’ll look back and think, I had an amazing life.
Her last climb was Japan’s Mount Fuji with a group of high school students in 2011, according to Japan’s state broadcaster NHK.
