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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class as a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that shushes down the slopes of history one

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Speaker 1: day at a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're

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Speaker 1: looking at the story of You Eat huro Mira, a

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Speaker 1: daring Japanese mountaineer who rode down the world's tallest mountain

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Speaker 1: on a pair of skis. The day was May six,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. Professional skier You Eat Yuro Mira became the

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Speaker 1: first person to ski down Mount Everest. It wasn't as

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Speaker 1: smooth a ride as he had hoped for. He wound

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Speaker 1: up falling approximately feet, but he did survive the run,

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Speaker 1: and that was something that many people assumed wouldn't happen,

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Speaker 1: including the skier himself. You Eat Yuro Mira was born

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Speaker 1: on October twelfth, nineteen thirty two, and Aomori City, Japan.

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Speaker 1: His father, in acclaimed skiing pioneer named Kaizo Mia, introduced

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Speaker 1: him to the sport as a child. He took to

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Speaker 1: it right away and later became a professional skier, competing

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Speaker 1: in both downhill skiing and speed skiing. It was in

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Speaker 1: the latter sport that he first made a name for himself.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, he set a world record when

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Speaker 1: he reached the blistering speed of a hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: two kilometers or about a hundred and seven miles per hour.

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Speaker 1: You Eat Yuro was pleased with the record, but he

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Speaker 1: knew it wouldn't last. It was just a matter of

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Speaker 1: time until someone managed to go faster than he did. Still,

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Speaker 1: he probably thought his record would stand for longer than

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Speaker 1: one day, but it didn't. The following afternoon, someone broke

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Speaker 1: the world speed record again, and it was at that

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Speaker 1: moment that you Eat Yuro decided chasing speed records wasn't

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Speaker 1: his thing. Instead, he decided to focus on skiing the

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Speaker 1: most magnificent summits in the world. He started in his

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Speaker 1: own backyard with Mount Fuji in April of nineteen sixty six.

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Speaker 1: No one had ever skied the mountain before, and You

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Speaker 1: Eat Yerro knew that if he was to be the first,

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Speaker 1: he would need to take some precautions. Going a hundred

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Speaker 1: miles an hour down a dedicated ski slope is one thing,

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Speaker 1: but going that fast down a steep, rocky mountain side

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Speaker 1: was a much more dangerous prospect. To help control his speed,

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Speaker 1: You Eat Yourrow decided to wear a parachute that he

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Speaker 1: could deploy when he reached his top speed. His idea

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Speaker 1: was untested at the time, but thankfully it worked, and

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Speaker 1: You Eat Your Ow was able to slow down after

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Speaker 1: reaching a speed of about ninety three miles per hour.

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Speaker 1: His landmark run on Mount Fuji was just as fulfilling

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Speaker 1: an experience as a skier had hoped. He later reflected

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Speaker 1: on that turn in his career, writing quote, it seems

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Speaker 1: to me that greater than the satisfaction of winning and

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Speaker 1: competition is the joy of forgetting yourself and becoming one

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Speaker 1: with the mountains. Of course, there was also likely some

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Speaker 1: satisfaction in knowing that this other kind of record couldn't

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Speaker 1: be broken, no matter how many people took on the

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Speaker 1: same challenge later, You Eat Yerro would always be the

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Speaker 1: first person to ski down Mount Fuji, and eventually down

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Speaker 1: the highest mountain in the world too. It was after

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Speaker 1: conquering Fuji that You Eat Yerro was invited to New

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Speaker 1: Zealand to ski the famous Tasman Glacier. The country's tourism

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Speaker 1: bureau thought the feat would make for great publicity. You

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Speaker 1: Eat Yuro accepted the invitation, and while he was there

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Speaker 1: he was introduced to Sir Edmund Hillary, the climber who

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Speaker 1: had made history in nine by becoming the first person

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Speaker 1: a long with his partner to ever reach the summit

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Speaker 1: of Mount Everest. You Eat yer Ow was inspired by

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Speaker 1: the meeting and determined to make Everest the goal of

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Speaker 1: his career as well. Hillary reportedly thought the skier was

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Speaker 1: out of his mind when he first heard his plan,

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Speaker 1: but the Nepalese government was much more receptive to the

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Speaker 1: idea of someone skiing down Everest. There was one condition, though,

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Speaker 1: You Eat yer Ow wouldn't be permitted to ski down

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Speaker 1: the summit of Mount Everest. Instead, he could only ski

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Speaker 1: the South Call, the somewhat lower mountain pass that connects

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Speaker 1: the world's tallest mountain to the world's fourth tallest. This

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Speaker 1: would put the skiers starting point at about three thousand

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Speaker 1: vertical feet short of Everest Peak, but with a slope

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Speaker 1: of roughly forty degrees, the South Call was still a

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Speaker 1: more than formidable challenge, So formidable in fact, that as

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Speaker 1: You Eat yer O scouted the area and conducted test runs.

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Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen sixty nine, it dawned on

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Speaker 1: him that there was a high chance he wouldn't survive

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Speaker 1: the run. The skier determined that accepting death is a

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Speaker 1: likely possibility was a requirement for what he was attempting,

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Speaker 1: so he made peace with his own mortality and began

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Speaker 1: making his way up the mountain in February of nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: His expedition was a massive undertaking, consisting of mountaineers, scientists,

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Speaker 1: and a ski team. The mission was made even more

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Speaker 1: complicated by the inclusion of a film crew, photographers, and

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Speaker 1: members of the media. In fact, it took eight hundred

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Speaker 1: porters just to haul the group's twenty seven tons of

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Speaker 1: equipment to the Everest base camp. After they arrived in

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Speaker 1: late March, the team spent several weeks at base camp,

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Speaker 1: acclimatizing to the thin air and planning the last leg

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Speaker 1: of their journey. Sadly, even with all that preparation, the

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Speaker 1: expeditions still had casualties. At higher than seventeen thousand feet,

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Speaker 1: the oxygen content in the air was about half the

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Speaker 1: amount found at sea level. Two members of the team

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Speaker 1: died from heart attacks in that thin air, and six

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Speaker 1: sherpas were buried in a cave in on the Kumbu

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Speaker 1: ice fall. After their bodies were recovered, You eat Yero declared, quote,

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Speaker 1: there can be no happy ending now, no matter what

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Speaker 1: I do. The skier had accepted the likelihood of his

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Speaker 1: own death, but not that of so many of his supporters.

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Speaker 1: He later said that he had considered calling off the

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Speaker 1: expedition then and there, but ultimately changed his mind because quote,

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Speaker 1: to pay back the respect to them, I felt it

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Speaker 1: was my responsibility to face the challenge and complete it.

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Speaker 1: At around nine am on May six, that's just what

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Speaker 1: you eat yer Ow did when he became the first

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Speaker 1: person to ski at an altitude higher than twenty six

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Speaker 1: thousand feet. Technically, he set that record just by making

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Speaker 1: a few practice turns on the slopes of South Call,

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Speaker 1: but of course, after coming all that way, he had

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Speaker 1: a much longer run in mind. By eleven am, he

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Speaker 1: had hiked up to his starting point, but the run

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Speaker 1: had to be delayed two hours due to high winds. Finally,

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Speaker 1: at one oh seven pm, the thirty seven year old

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Speaker 1: skier got the green light and away he went, knowing

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Speaker 1: his life was on the line. You Eat. Huro had

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Speaker 1: donned a crash helmet, an oxygen mask, an air cushioned

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Speaker 1: life jacket and his trusty parachute. By the end of

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Speaker 1: his two minutes and twenty second run, he would be

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Speaker 1: thankful for each and every item. The plan had been

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Speaker 1: to ski in a straight line, but once his shoot

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Speaker 1: was deployed, that became impossible. Erratic cross winds sent him

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Speaker 1: careening in all directions, and he quickly lost his balance.

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Speaker 1: In an instant, he was flipping and turning wildly down

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Speaker 1: the mountain, and was eventually launched thirty feet into the

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Speaker 1: air after flying off the edge of a large rock. Luckily,

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Speaker 1: he happened to land on a patch of snow, and

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Speaker 1: although he blacked out on impact, he slowly slid to

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Speaker 1: a stop, just a couple hundred feet short of falling

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Speaker 1: into the largest crevasse in the world. It had taken you,

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Speaker 1: each year old, just over two minutes to descend approximately

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Speaker 1: forty vertical feet, but as you might expect, the ordeal

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Speaker 1: felt much longer in the skier's head. In he recounted

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Speaker 1: his surprisingly zen like thoughts to Smithsonian Magazine, saying quote,

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Speaker 1: I was sure I would not survive. Death was not

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Speaker 1: a particular feeling, but rather I was thinking about what

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Speaker 1: I would be after three thousand thirty thousand or three

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Speaker 1: million years in the future, my reincarnation. He also recalled

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Speaker 1: thinking quote, am I live or dead? Which world am

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Speaker 1: I in? After about a minute, I realized that I'm alive.

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Speaker 1: I felt that I returned to this world in the

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Speaker 1: form of a human as You eat Yero Miura, like

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Speaker 1: the soul returning to the body. That particular journey was

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Speaker 1: something only he got to experience, but because the camera

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Speaker 1: crew had filmed the entire trip up and down the mountain,

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Speaker 1: people around the world got to witness the adventure themselves.

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Speaker 1: The footage was released as a nineteen seventy five documentary

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Speaker 1: called The Man Who Skied Down Everest. It won the

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Speaker 1: Academy Award for Best Documentary that year, becoming the first

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Speaker 1: sports film in history to do so. By that point,

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Speaker 1: You Eat Yuro had built quite a legacy for himself,

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Speaker 1: but he didn't stop at Everest. In nineteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: he skied down Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, and in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty three he became the first person to ski Mount

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Speaker 1: Vincent in Antarctica. Two years later, he added to his

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Speaker 1: tally Mount Elbrists in Europe and Mount a Kangawa in

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Speaker 1: South America. Taken together with his earlier runs on Mount

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Speaker 1: Koziasco in Australia, Mount McKinley in North America, and of

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Speaker 1: course Mount Everest in Asia. You Eat your oh had

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Speaker 1: skied down the highest peaks of all seven continents for

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Speaker 1: a while. He considered that enough adventure for one lifetime,

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Speaker 1: but then in the late nineteen nineties he decided he

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Speaker 1: wasn't done with Mount Everest yet. He never got the

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Speaker 1: chance to ski the Mountains summit, but he did climb

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Speaker 1: up to it on May twenty second, two thousand three.

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Speaker 1: He was almost seventy one years old, making in the

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Speaker 1: oldest person to reach the summit at that time. Five

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Speaker 1: years later he made the track again, and then five

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Speaker 1: years after that he reached the summit a third time.

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Speaker 1: He may just be showing off at this point, but

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Speaker 1: You eat your own Mira actually lands to scale Everest

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Speaker 1: for a fourth time once he turns ninety years old

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Speaker 1: in October of two. You may be wondering why someone

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Speaker 1: would subject themselves to that kind of grueling challenge in

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Speaker 1: their golden years, but I think the challenge itself is

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Speaker 1: the whole point. As Sir Edmund Hillary famously said, it's

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Speaker 1: not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. I'm Gabe Louisier

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. If you have a second

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Speaker 1: and you're so inclined, consider following the show on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t D i HC Show, and if

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Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to send

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Speaker 1: them my way at this Day at I heart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again soon for another Day in History. Class of D