80-Year-Old Yuichiro Miura’s Weight-loss Strategy: Climb Mount Everest

Climber Yuichiro Miura’s passion for mountaineering began with a simple desire – to lose weight.

At 60 years old, Miura was better known as a daredevil skier. He had skied down the world’s seven highest peaks, including Mount Everest, but had no real experience scaling them.

“After retiring, I was a little bored with nothing to do and got fat,” Miura said. “I thought, if a 60-year-old metabolic fat man, after five years, can get to Mount Everest, that would be very exciting.”

Miura started small. He climbed a 1,640-foot mountain in Sapporo first, then took on Mount Fuji, six times.

He trained by walking in Tokyo every day, wearing 11-pound weights on each ankle, and 44 pounds on his shoulder.

It took 10 years, but Miura successfully reached the summit of Everest at 70 years old with his son Gota, an Olympic skier, by his side. The 2003 trip coincided with the 50th anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s climb -- they were the first to reach the world’s highest peak.

“The top of Mount Everest at the time was so crowded,” Miura said. “I could only see crowds, so I’m thinking I must go back again when the mountain is clear.”

Miura made good on that promise, overcoming several heart surgeries, to become the oldest man to climb Everest at 75 years old. Last month, he returned to set another world record – this time, at the age of 80.

“It was like heaven. There were clouds everywhere,” Miura said, about the view from the top -- “6,000, 7,000 meter mountains everywhere like flowers. [They looked] like lotus blossoms in the lake.”

That last climb didn’t come so easily. Miura had had heart surgery two months before taking off for Nepal in March. The octogenarian didn’t have enough time to rehabilitate, so he had to train carefully, in intervals, he said.

Once on Everest, Miura’s team – his 43-year-old son, six Nepali sherpas, and two other Japanese climbers – took twice as long to get from one camp to another. They only climbed in the mornings, and made sure to rest half the day so Miura’s body could adjust to the altitude.

In the afternoons, the team relaxed with tea ceremonies, and ate hand-rolled sushi.

“Every time I enjoyed, even in high altitudes of 27,880 feet,” Miura said. “In the ‘death zone’ life is very critical, but I enjoyed the situation.”

But the time he spent enjoying that experience nearly cost Miura his life. The climber spent an hour at the top of the summit, much of it without his oxygen mask on, and later suffered severe exhaustion.

Oxygen concentration at the summit is a third of that at sea level, and Miura said he failed to properly pace himself for the descent.

With his legs near paralysis, and a snowstorm quickly moving in, Miura said he felt himself quickly fading. That is – until he saw the bodies of fellow climbers, who died three days before, attempting the same climb.

“I was passing through, thinking what if I become one of them,” Miura said. “I thought, if we can get to the South Col, I know we can go home alive. The last 16 feet I crawled to the tent.”

Now, back in Tokyo, Miura already has his eye set on his next goal – skiing down Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest mountain.

He plans to accomplish that feat five years from now, when he turns 85.

Miura’s inspiration? His father Keizo Miura, who skied down the French Alps – at 99 years old.

“It’s important to have a dream no matter how old you are,” Miura said. “Just keep challenging yourself. I think that’s a great thing.”