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Chapter 6

Hope for the Best,
GORE-TEX for the Worst

May 31 to June 1, 2018

On the morning of May 31, I finally met with the immigration lawyer and signed the paperwork for my second attempt at a visa—this time, in the “cultural activities” category. That afternoon, I boarded a shinkansen for the three-hour and 20-minute, 577-kilometer ride to Aomori City on the northern tip of Honshu (Japan’s largest major island, which is also home to Tokyo and Kyoto).

I could barely contain my excitement over my first trip to the Tōhōku region. I couldn’t wait to see the mountains, taste the regional specialties, and add more summit pins to my collection (which currently numbered two).

The morning after I arrived, I went to the visitor center at Aomori Station to buy a round-trip “Skyline bus” ticket to Mount Iwaki (岩木山), a 1,625-meter stratovolcano whose yawning summit crater measures two kilometers in diameter (making the mountain broader than it is tall).

The woman behind the counter greeted my request with concern. “Iwaki-san? But it might rain!”

I, too, had seen the low, gray clouds, but my plans did not allow for rain delays. I had adopted a philosophy of “hope for the best and Gore-Tex for the worst.” Besides, Mount Iwaki had a “sightseeing lift” (a repurposed skiing chairlift) that carried visitors almost to the top.

What harm could a little rain do?

After my desire to visit the mountain persisted through three choruses of “it might rain,” the clerk sold me the bus pass—but she looked at me like a doctor watching a critical patient leave the hospital against medical advice.

When the Skyline bus left Aomori, I was the only person on it. I tried to persuade myself that this was not cause for concern. For once, my inner critic did not disagree—but only because it was too busy calling me out for planning to take the lift.

The lift is cheating. The summit doesn’t count if you don’t climb all the way.

A number of popular Japanese mountains feature gondolas, cable cars, or chairlifts that let hikers skip a portion of the climb. Every Japanese person I consulted said “of course the summit counts if you take the lift” (and my friends and family agreed) but after a lifetime of reading about serious mountaineering expeditions, where people spent days or weeks ascending difficult peaks, riding a lift (even part of the way) felt less than sporting.

It also opened up an Everest-sized can of mental worms.

From the time I was old enough to understand there was an easy way to do some things, I had always refused to take it.

The first time I remember taking the hard way was—again—in elementary school. I had written my first essay, and my mother—a former English teacher—offered to review it, and offer comments, before I turned it in.

To my eight-year-old mind, accepting help was cheating. It never occurred to me that my scrupulously honest mother would never let me cheat, or that other kids might also be getting help. I refused to let her see it, and I took my lumps when the grade came back.

I continued to take the hardest possible routes through high school, college, law school, and my working life. I refused to ask for or accept assistance and took pride in my ability to succeed alone. But it wasn’t only pride that made me do it.

I was afraid that if I needed help, it meant that I was weak, and, by extension, unworthy of being loved.

If you ride the lift, it’s proof you couldn’t hack the climb.

The continuing, unsolicited input from my inner voice put me over the edge in a new direction: I made a personal rule that I would ride not only the lift on Mount Iwaki but every other ropeway, gondola, and chairlift I encountered on my climbs.

It was time for me to learn that I didn’t always have to take the hardest path to my destination.

Decision made, I turned my attention to the scenery outside the bus—or, more accurately, the lack of it. On clear days, the curving “Skyline” offers expansive views of Aomori’s famous forests, but thick white clouds and fog obscured the mountains and the rolling hills beyond.

At the Mount Iwaki visitor center, I made careful note of the fact that I had six hours until the final bus departed for Aomori City. I felt confident that I could reach the top and return in time—after all, I was taking a chairlift to the summit.

The cable for the sightseeing lift disappeared into the heavy mist that enveloped the mountain’s upper slopes. Red bench-style seats hung down at regular intervals, like giant Christmas lights on a massive wire—but they weren’t moving.

Maybe that’s why there was no one on the bus.

I crossed the parking lot toward the lower station, unsure what I would do if the lift was closed. When I approached, the chairs began to move. (As it turned out, the operator turned the chairlift off to conserve energy when no one was around.) Three minutes later I was riding up the misty slope with Blue in my lap and my feet dangling less than a meter off the ground.

The lower station disappeared behind me, swallowed by the mist. The world consisted of nothing but me, the surrounding empty lift chairs, and the cloudy, shrub-covered mountainside. The cable creaked as it carried me slowly upward. For an instant, it seemed as if everyone and everything had disappeared and that I was the only person left on earth.

Although I knew that wasn’t true, I felt a rush of relief when the upper station—and its safety-vested worker—appeared through the fog a couple of minutes later.

I disembarked in front of a wooden sign that read “Mount Iwaki Crater, 1,470m.”

All well and good, but Mount Iwaki was 1,625 meters high, which left me quite a bit more trail to climb—significantly more than I expected.

Between the lift and the summit, the trail wound up and down along a rocky route that looked more like a series of boulder piles than a hiking path. Heavy, shifting mist reduced visibility to less than a dozen meters. I couldn’t see—or even estimate—how far I had to go.

At times, the trail became so steep that I had to use my hands and truly climb. The experience reminded me how much I loved exploring the boulder-strewn inlets of Catalina Island, off the California coast, when I was young. I hadn’t thought about those coastal rocks in decades, but the memory calmed my nerves. I used it to remind myself that I had climbed on rocks before, even though the trail up Mount Iwaki looked more like Frodo’s ascent into Mordor than the California coast.

Later on, the trail grew steeper still, and I began to feel afraid. I didn’t think I was scared of heights, but the higher I climbed, the harder it was to continue moving upward.

You are not afraid of heights. You’re terrified of falling to your death.

I considered this, and realized my inner voice was right. I wasn’t scared of going up. I was afraid I’d fall when I came back down. I told myself that “down” was a bridge I didn’t have to cross just yet. To my surprise, it helped.

A few minutes later, I felt unexpected warmth on my shoulders. I kept climbing, and the sun appeared, along with the summit.

Beneath me, the mountain disappeared into a sea of clouds—a sight I’d never seen except from an airplane or in photographs of someone else’s life.

The puffy white blanket of clouds stretched all the way to the pale blue horizon. A breeze blew gently across my face, and sunshine warmed my mist-chilled cheeks.

In that moment, I forgot about my fear. This was the reason I came to the mountains. This was why I chose to climb.

The summit was still a 30-minute hike away, but the rocky trail—by which I mean a trail made entirely of rocks—did flatten out enough to let me walk upright.

I reached the mountaintop just after noon and rang the large bronze summit bell. Its peal reverberated through the empty air. After taking pictures of the summit and the bell, I walked to the little Shintō shrine that stood on the far side of the summit area. There, I prayed for peace and health for every person who had ever stood on Iwaki’s summit, for my friends and family, and, finally, for myself. I prayed that my cancer would not return and that I would complete my 100 Summits project.

When I finished, I turned and stared at the sea of clouds once more, almost unable to believe that I had finally made it to this place. For years I had imagined what it must be like to climb a real mountain, stand on its peak, and see what mountain climbers saw.

Now, I was actually doing it—and the reality was even better and more beautiful than I expected.

The descent was not as terrifying as expected either. I retraced my path back through the clouds and down the misty slopes of my personal Mordor. As I did, I contemplated Kyūya Fukada’s reason for creating the hyakumeizan list: to assemble a group of mountains that, when climbed, would reveal “the essence of Japanese mountains.”

I suspected they would also reveal the essence of the people who tried to climb them, and I hoped they would show me who I was inside. More accurately, I hoped they would change me into a stronger and more confident version of myself before the year was through.

When I returned to my hotel, I treated myself to a freshly baked “Aomori apple pie,” a local specialty made from the apples of which Aomori is justifiably proud. Although it bore a suspicious resemblance to the small, rectangular pies sold by some US fast-food chains, the first bite of tender, flaky crust bursting with juicy apples revealed that Aomori apple pies are to drive-thru food what diamonds are to pebbles. I could have spent the entire evening gorging myself on celebratory pies (and did consider it) but decided to forgo gluttony in favor of a good night’s sleep.

I would need it, because my next climb upped the ante to three peaks in a single day.