She signed on with Rob Hall's guiding company, Adventure Consultants, and reached the summit in May 1996, but died during her descent in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.

Prior to her involvement in the Everest disaster, Yasuko Namba had been employed by Federal Express as a personnel manager in Tokyo, Japan.

Hutchinson found both in such bad shape that they were unlikely to live long enough to be carried down to Base Camp, and he decided to leave the two alone to save limited resources for the other climbers.

Jon Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air, describes the anguish of Neal Beidleman, who felt guilty that he was unable to do anything more to save Namba.

Boukreev's book, The Climb, expressed profound regret at her lonely death, saying that she was just a little 90-pound woman and that someone should have dragged her back to camp so she could at least die among her companions.

[7] In 2008, materials created by the PBS program "Frontline" for David Breashears' film Storm Over Everest, John Taske described Namba and presented his thoughts on factors which may have contributed to her death, saying "She was a little lady; I've never met a girl more determined.