Hiking Mt. Norikura: What I Really Want For My Birthday

 

It's nothing special, how I approach each birthday as a father. I just tell my kids (whether they ask me or not) I'd like to do something fun, and encourage them to throw their ideas at me; where to go, what to do, and where and what to eat. It's fun to hear what they say.

I smile at their enthusiasm and bite my tongue when they argue, and ultimately go along with whatever they decide - which is never what I silently hope for.

What the lone wolf in me wants is a huge home-cooked breakfast without having to cook or clean or listen to the kids go to battle over who gets which pancake when the first batch hits the table. He wants to take off on his own, cycling or hiking or both, at his own pace and discretion, with no debating where to stop for ice-cream. He'd get home just as the sun was dipping behind the mountains, and take a long hot shower and sit down to a burger and a beer without having to wash the dishes or listen to the kids argue over who gets to use the ketchup first.

Lone Wolf is going to have to try again next year.

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.

Hiking Mt. Bandai: Fatherhood and Who to Feed

My kids were staring at their grandma’s TV for the fifth night in a row. Not that there's much else to do after dark out here in the sticks, unless you want to stay up and keep watch for the wild boars and black bears that have recently been coming around.

A shortened summer vacation and a resurgent coronavirus had nixed our plans to visit the oft-overlooked, quietly intriguing island of Shikoku. To compensate we opted for a relaxing week at my wife’s parents’ peach farm in Fukushima, north of home but just as hot and three times as humid.

I’d spent most mornings helping my mother-in-law pick and pack peaches. As a family we’d done little else, remaining distant from the people and places that normally take up our time here. The days had passed sluggishly, slipping unremarkably by until suddenly it was Wednesday and we had a mere thirty-six hours before we'd have to return to Nagano. Tomorrow, then, was my last chance to carry on a nascent personal Fukushima tradition: going off for a day to climb one of the region's innumerable mountains.

It's a rather selfish endeavor, but we all need to feed our souls. And walking up really big hills then walking back down them is how I feed mine.

To this point it had been a private affair - just me and a mountain - so I was surprised at the words that were now falling out of my mouth.

Nasu-dake: Navigating Through Snow and Fatherhood

We visit my wife’s parents at their peach farm in Fukushima once or twice a year, and every time I bring three things: my hiking boots, my guide to Japan’s 100 Most Famous Mountains, and a hollow optimism that this time I’ll get out and do some hiking.

Then we get there and my wife and kids want to do a million things that don’t involve hiking and my boots end up sitting by the front door all week while I spend all my time playing daddy.

It’s just like being at home, except I don’t have to do the dishes.

I did make it out a few years ago, on a day that any normal person would have stayed home. “I think I’m gonna go climb Adatara tomorrow,” I told my wife as the weatherwoman on TV talked politely about the typhoon on the way. My wife was planning on everyone going shopping in the morning, then to lunch at the same ramen shop we always go to (not for nothing, their portions are massive). Her plan, I’m sure, included me. “I’ll take that orange bicycle out there. You going to be okay with the kids?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied, sounding less than excited about the perfect storm brewing. “You don’t want to eat lunch with us at Kuntaro?”

I did. But I didn’t.

Everyone was still sleeping when I slipped out the door and pedaled off into the gray, misty morning, heading for #21 of those Hundred Famous Mountains.