Japanese climber is high on Alaskan peaks

Masatoshi Kuriaki didn’t linger at the summit of Mt. Foraker when he became the first solo climber to conquer the 17,400-foot mountain in winter.

With 34-mph winds driving the wind chill to nearly 100 degrees below zero, the summit was just too cold and windy for the Japanese mountaineer from Fukuoka, a city of 1.3 million people in southern Japan where the mercury rarely dips below freezing.

“It was cold. I am tropical people. I don’t like the wind,” Kuriaki said when asked what went through his mind when he reached the top of North America’s sixth-highest peak, next to the more famous 20,320-foot Mt. McKinley in interior Alaska -- the tallest peak on the continent.

Strange words from a man who puts himself in some of the windiest, coldest places on the planet.

His reasons are simple.

“I love the climbing. I love the Alaska Range mountains. I love to see the Northern Lights,” said Kuriaki, who likes to compose haiku and read poetry while attempting some of the most difficult climbs in the world.

Kuriaki reached the Foraker summit at 5:03 p.m. on March 10 and spent a scant 10 minutes snapping pictures with a disposable camera before thanking the mountain and starting his descent in what would end up being 57 days on Foraker.

Although climbers have ascended alone to McKinley’s summit in winter, no one had done so on Foraker. That’s because it is a much more technically difficult mountain, with steeper sides, increased avalanche danger and more hanging glaciers than McKinley.

Its reputation is well earned. Last summer, two accomplished climbers disappeared and were never found. Some of their gear was found in an avalanche debris field.

Kuriaki’s goal is to reach the summits solo of McKinley, Foraker and Mt. Hunter, also in Alaska, in winter. He did McKinley alone in the winter of 1998, becoming the fourth person to do so.

In 1999 and 2001, he reached the summit of Foraker after the spring equinox, too late for the ascents to be recorded as winter climbs. He tried again in 2002, but strong winds and avalanches cut that climb short.

In 1998, a few weeks after coming off McKinley, he tried a different kind of solo adventure -- walking 860 miles from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay, a trek that earned him the nickname “the Japanese caribou.”

Kuriaki says he prefers winter climbing. He likes to watch the sun rise and set, the moon against the dark night sky, the Northern Lights dancing across the heavens, and shooting stars. He likes being alone on the mountain.

The 34-year-old mountaineer -- with only one serious accident in more than a dozen climbs -- counts himself lucky. In 1976, six Japanese climbers were killed in an avalanche on Foraker. In 1984, Japanese adventurer Naomi Uemura set out to be the first person to reach McKinley’s summit in winter. It is believed that he reached the summit but disappeared on the descent. His body has never been found.

In the winter of 1989, three Japanese climbers, including world-famous mountaineer Noboru Yamada, were found “flash frozen” and tangled in climbing ropes after 200-mph winds whipped McKinley.

Kuriaki considered himself fortunate in 1999 when he fell 50 feet into a crevasse on Foraker. He was without his two 14-foot crevasse poles and one of his skis because they already had been swept away by an avalanche when the accident occurred.

Kuriaki was almost done with the climb and approaching base camp. While going up the mountain, he had marked the crevasse on the Kahiltna Glacier with a red flag on a pole. On the way down, the red flag was still there but the crevasse was snowed over.

Kuriaki was poking around with the one ski pole he had left to check for the borders of the crevasse when the snow beneath him gave way.

“I broke a snow bridge by myself with a ski pole,” he said.

The 130-pound climber, who had 120 pounds of gear including a sled with him, fell into the crevasse. He landed on his backpack, which cushioned his fall.

“I got a big lucky,” he said. “When I stopped 50 feet, bottom of crevasse, I fast had the feeling, ‘Oh my God.’ ”

At first, Kuriaki thought his thighbone was broken. He taped it up and then began forming a plan to escape. He reduced the weight of his gear by half, then used ice screws and webbing to get himself out. It took about an hour.

Did Kuriaki consider giving up climbing after that close call?

“No,” he said. “When I got to camp, I’m already thinking of climbing. I’m thinking what went wrong.... I learn many things from this accident. I’m always learning.”

Kuriaki began climbing when he was 15 years old, but it wasn’t until he was 21 and had cut off the end of his index finger while working on a motorcycle that he got serious.

In 1995, he and a partner reached the summit of McKinley. After that, his attention turned toward solo climbing in winter. Kuriaki found himself testing equipment and clothing in a large walk-in fish freezer in his hometown in Japan. He would unfurl his sleeping bag in the 67-below-zero temperature and sleep among the hanging tuna and Alaska salmon.

Kuriaki likes to refer to McKinley, Foraker and Hunter by their Alaska Native names: the high one, the wife and the child.

Three times, Kuriaki has attempted to reach the summit of Hunter in winter, and three times the 14,573-foot mountain south of McKinley has refused him. He said the child may be the most challenging of the three.

Avalanche danger in 2004 and 2005 turned him back. In 2004, he spent a month in camp studying the mountain.

During that time, he counted 15 avalanches that could have killed him if he had been on the mountain. In 2003, he called it quits at 9,000 feet after a blizzard forced him into a snow cave for 12 days.

Kuriaki said he would tackle Hunter again next winter.

“I keep watching, learning for the future,” he said.