People :
Mountain-Climbing club members reached the unconquered summit of Thibhimar!
Mr. Takeo Yoshinaga and
Mr. Mitsuhiro Koseki

Mr. Takeo Yoshinaga (at right) He was born in Chiba Prefecture in 1981, and graduated from Chiba City Inage High School. He is a senior of the School of Education and belongs to Professor Yuko Kudo’s seminar. After graduating from Waseda University, he will work for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper as a reporter. He is planning to run across the Shiretoko Peninsula before his graduation. Mr. Mitsuhiro Koseki (at left) He was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1985, and graduated from Waseda High School. He is a sophomore in the School of Letters Arts and Sciences. He has experienced different cultures through climbing in foreign countries and is anxious to make a report on anthropology.

The Musutan Expedition Team (student division) has been established as a project of the Japan Alpine Club’s centenary. Five students, including Mr. Yoshinaga and Mr. Kozeki, succeeded in reaching the summit of Thibhimar (6,650m) in the Musutan region in Nepal. This team was the first ever to reach the summit. Mr. Yoshinaga was influenced by his father, a manager of the mountain climbing club of Chiba University, and so he has been familiar with climbing since his childhood. He was interested in the Mustan region and visited there when he was a sophomore, and his dream to climb a mountain in Mustan came true in his senior year.

On the other hand, Mr. Kozeki started climbing after he entered the university. He became the only sophomore member of the project because his potential abilities were highly valued, while most of the other members were leaders of university mountain-climbing clubs. On this expedition, the team was troubled with the high-altitude sickness on the high mountain. They suffered from headache and fever. However, they climbed up the mountain with 25kg luggage without the help of a porter. This reporter imagined a dramatic scene, but they plainly say, "It was not as hard to reach the top of the mountain as we had expected"(laughter). The picture they took on the top of Thibhimar is now hanging up in their favorite restaurant, Shouryuken, a casual Chinese restaurant with the big sign out front on Waseda Street. Mr. Kozeki says delightedly, "We're happy to see the picture hanging in the restaurant." It seems very heart-warming that they thought about their familiar restaurant in Waseda at the summit of a mountain in distant Nepal.

Mr. Yoshinaga had the experience of carrying a climbing companion who broke a bone while climbing from top of Mt. Fuji. He says “I tried to keep smiling because I thought it was not good for both of us to take a gloomy view of the accident." He laughed away the hardship. They say, "If you once climb a mountain, it will make you understand the attraction of mountains!" We find their passion for mountains shining brightly.