Sunday, January 31, 2021

Kaimon-dake: Up Close & Passable

Kaimon-dake had been high on my to-hike list since I first cycled the Satsuma Peninsula in 2017. Under sapphire skies this conical peak rose like a perfect Mt. Fuji, floating on the edge of the ocean at the southwest tip of Japan, calling me in that silent language to come see things that exist beyond words.

Now, two weeks into 2021, circumstances had brought me back to this quiet, scarcely-traveled place. I’d just finished up a three-week working vacation down on the island of Yakushima, a mountainous place of monkeys and deer, spidery Banyan trees and gnarled, thousand-year-old cedars, and daily rainbows that naturally occur with daily rains. As with hiking Kaimon, I had fantastic expectations for this random opportunity to travel. In Yakushima, it can be hard to take three steps without having your breath taken away yet again.

Sadly, my working vacation came with little vacation. But in some places you can see a year’s worth of beauty in a day.

Back on the mainland but not ready to go home, I booked a hotel in Kagoshima and made a date with Kaimon. My visions of what was to come were stark and fantastic: I’d stand on the summit, the land and the sea stretching into eternity before me; I'd gaze down on royal blue Ikeda Lake to the north, then turn to take in the scattered gray-green islands swimming in the distant pelagic south. The beauty would be encompassing.

I had no mind to consider whether reality could actually measure up.