In January of 1902, to prepare for battles in cold and mountainous climates, the Japanese Imperial Army sent 210 men on a training exercise across the Hokoda Mountains in the middle of winter.

This would go into be the single deadliest mountaineering disaster in all of recorded history.

This is the story of the Hakoda Mountains disaster.

At the turn of the 20th century, tensions were rising between the Japanese Emperor and the

Russian Tsar, and war was seeming more and more likely between the two nations.

Throughout history, Russia has been known for its ability to fight effectively in the cold, and in fact, it's often seemed as though the colder it is, the fierce they could be.

This was something that the Japanese High Command was worried about.

The first Sino-Japanese War had just ended in 1895, during which the Japanese faced significant

problems fighting in cold mountainous train in Korea.

Not only did it make the battles difficult, but it was a logistical nightmare.

If war were to break it again, they expected to face similar conditions on their northern

shores or even across the sea.

A scenario that was thought of as particularly likely was the shelling of the northern

coast of Honshu, the largest of the Japanese islands. In this scenario, all of the roads and

railways along the coast would be destroyed and make travel inland necessary. The only

problem is that just south of the north coast of Honshu is a mountain range known as the

Hokkaota Mountains. These are a series of active

volcanoes and some are as highs over 5,000 feet or 1,500 meters. They're also known to get

a significant amount of snowfall which would make travel across them even more difficult,

not to mention the fact that temperatures 30 degrees below freezing were not unheard of. So because

of this, the Japanese High Command came up with a plan. They would train

some specialist units to secure route across the mountain range in the winter. This was seen

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