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Chapter 1

Victory—and Misery—on Misen

June 2015

I fell in love with climbing mountains the day one almost killed me.

In June 2015, my son Christopher was a university sophomore majoring in Japanese language and completing a three-month study abroad in Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. He invited me to visit him in the country he had grown to love, where he also planned to live after graduation.

I loved Japan myself—I majored in Asian studies at Tufts University before attending law school and pursuing a “safe” career in law. By 2015 I had also written three critically acclaimed mystery novels set in 16th-century Kyoto, even though I had never been to Asia. Too scared to make the 10-hour flight, I did my extensive research in books and through interviews with contacts in Japan.

Only when Christopher asked me to visit did I finally summon the courage to white-knuckle my way across the Pacific to the country I had studied, and adored, for more than three decades.

Near the end of my time in Japan, we spent the night on Miyajima, an island off the coast of Hiroshima that I’d wanted to visit since seeing a picture of Itsukushima Shrine’s Great Torii in National Geographic magazine when I was nine years old. The enormous vermilion Shintō gate stands 15 meters high. When the tide comes in around its base, the “floating gate” is among Japan’s most memorable and iconic sights.

The shrine sits directly in front of sacred Mount Misen (弥山) (535 meters), Miyajima’s highest mountain. In 806, a Japanese priest named Kōbō Daishi (also known as Kūkai) spent 100 days meditating on Mount Misen and lit a sacred eternal flame in a temple near the summit. This sacred fire was later used to kindle the eternal flame at the World War II memorial in Hiroshima Park. I desperately wanted to see Kōbō Daishi’s flame, which had burned for more than 1,000 years, but knew my middle-aged, overweight body couldn’t handle a two-kilometer climb up ancient steps to the temple near the mountain’s peak.

However, the Miyajima Ropeway carried visitors from the base of Mount Misen to Shishiiwa Observatory, just half an hour’s hike below the summit—and a half-hour climb, I thought I might just manage.

At the ropeway, Christopher and I faced a decision: Should we ride the gondola round-trip or buy a one-way ticket up and hike back down? My son suggested the round-trip ride, but riding most of the way to the top struck me as “cheating” on the climb, so I persuaded him to ride one way and hike back down the mountain on the trail.

“It will be fun,” I promised. “An adventure.”

He glanced at the overcast sky but didn’t argue.

We started up a well-marked earthen trail punctuated by flights of steep stone stairs. Shifting mist obscured the path ahead. The smell of the surrounding pines, combined with the scents of earth and mist, made my spirit sing despite the way my thighs burned from the unaccustomed exercise.

Signs on the path informed us that the trip to the summit would take about 30 minutes, but I suspected we would need a little more. In fact, it took me 35 minutes just to reach the Eternal Fire Hall, which sits in a clearing on the mountain’s shoulder. Swirls of mist drifted through the clearing as I approached the wooden worship hall. I felt the mountain’s holiness—a peace and stillness in my spirit that, for once, had silenced all my fears.

The eternal flame burned on an altar at the back of the tiny hall. Around it, rows of candles flickered, kindled from the holy fire by worshippers who climbed Mount Misen’s slopes.

After viewing the sacred flame, we continued toward the summit. The roughhewn steps were slick with mist. The lack of handrails and the dizzying drop-off to my right made me cautious. My feet slipped more than once, sending bursts of adrenaline through my limbs.

Every couple of minutes, I was passed by one of the many Japanese octogenarians who moved up and down the mountain with confident speed. Under any other circumstances, I would have found the experience mortifying. As it was, I simply wanted to reach the top without plummeting to my death.

Twenty minutes later, we reached the summit.

Thick mist swirled past the boulders that ringed the peak. Three stone Buddhas peered benevolently down from their perch atop a rock that rose a meter higher than my head. Silver coins that visitors tossed up as offerings lay around the statues’ feet; Christopher pitched a coin at one of the Buddhas until it settled without rolling off.

I tried too, without success, so Christopher tossed my offering up as well.

Stomachs rumbling, we investigated the building at the center of the summit. It had no restaurant but did have toilets (an initially unexpected, but delightful, feature of most Japanese hiking trails: nothing improves an outdoor experience like an indoor loo).

At that time, I lived my life with an undercurrent of fear—a constant, background-level worry about failure, loss, or making a mistake—but as I stood taking pictures on Misen’s misty summit, I felt my fear withdraw.

In that moment, I felt only joy.

I didn’t understand how, or why, the mountain replaced my fear with a peace that radiated outward from my chest and filled me with energy like nothing I had felt before. I suspected this was a shadow of the euphoria mountaineers reported feeling on the summit of real peaks, like Everest. I’d read about that feeling many times but never thought I would experience it. I didn’t tell Christopher—after all, we hadn’t even really climbed the mountain—but I felt a true sense of accomplishment.

The slippery mist and lack of handrails made the stone steps even scarier on the descent. I turned sideways and moved at a pace that would have made an arthritic tortoise sneer. Even then, I barely avoided the ignominy of a seated scoot down the mist-soaked stairs.

My son soon disappeared from view, but I found him waiting at the Eternal Fire Hall.

“You’re sure you want to climb back down, instead of taking the cable car?” he asked.

I was sure. “It will be an adventure!”

Truer words were never spoken.

The 2.5-kilometer Momijidani (Maple Valley) Trail winds down the forested slopes of Mount Misen along the course of the Momiji River. Posted signs suggested the hike would take about 90 minutes.

“You’re sure about this?” Christopher looked doubtful.

I was still sure, so down we went.

For the first 20 minutes, the trail alternated between gently sloping earthen paths and old stone stairs. To my relief, the steeper sections all had handrails. My legs ached, but I didn’t want to ask for a break so soon, since I’d insisted on the hike.

We passed a marker saying we had 2.3 kilometers to go.

I converted the distance in my head. “That must be wrong. We’ve walked more than a tenth of a mile.”

“I doubt it’s wrong.” Christopher paused. “Want to go back and take the ropeway?”

I looked back the way we came. “I think down is easier.”

His expression suggested he thought otherwise.

“We’re through the steepest part,” I insisted (with no factual basis for my opinion—which later proved to be wildly wrong). “Let’s keep going.”

The mist remained, but the temperature slowly rose to a sweltering 29 degrees Celsius (85 Fahrenheit). Humidity and exertion made me sweat in places I didn’t even realize I had pores. We hadn’t brought anything to drink. My mouth grew pasty, and I felt a dehydration headache coming on. My feet ached and my thighs burned painfully with every step.

Then, as if on cue, it started raining.

Fortunately, we had brought umbrellas. As we opened them, Christopher said, “You know, I’m really glad we didn’t take the ropeway.”

(Have I mentioned that sarcasm runs in the family?)

“It’s an adventure,” I replied, though less enthusiastically than before.

Ten minutes later, while descending another set of uneven steps, my foot slipped out from under me. As I flailed my arms for balance, my other foot slipped, and I felt myself fall.

In that instant, I realized this could kill me.

After a lifetime of avoiding risk, I was about to die on a mountain so small it barely deserved the name.

The steps were carved from stone, and more than capable of breaking my limbs or neck. Three meters down, the stairs curved sharply left, and only a narrow bamboo rail separated me from a 15-meter fall to the rocks below. Even if I survived the fall, we were kilometers from help.

I bounced down three stone steps and into a thorn bush at the side of the trail, which arrested my fall and likely saved my life. It also left a dozen inch-deep, bleeding punctures in my butt and hands.

A massive jolt of adrenaline coursed through me.

“Mom!”

I heard Christopher’s terrified shout and wanted to reassure him.

I took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

He hurried toward me. “Are you hurt?”

I was sitting in a thorn bush. Every part of my body screamed with pain, and I may have wet myself a little when I fell. (With all the sweat, I really wasn’t sure.) I had shooting pains in my hips and back that registered at least an 8.5 on the you’ll regret this later scale—but I wasn’t dead and had no broken bones.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I extracted myself from the bush and forced a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

Within two steps I knew I’d escaped the fall with only minor injuries, but also that I had to reach the bottom before the adrenaline wore off and the true pain set in. I didn’t want to frighten Christopher by telling him how much the fall had hurt me, so I sucked it up and hiked on through the pain.

Farther down the slope, the trail moved closer to the river, which cascaded over rocks and filled the air with the sound of waterfalls. At first, this seemed like a great distraction.

However, the river was also home to swarms of enormous biting flies—for which my son and I were the Blue Plate Special.

These flies do not sneak up on you. They buzz your head like fighter jets with a bite that feels like daggers in your neck. The bites swell up immediately, and they bleed and hurt long after the flies have drunk their fill and gone their merry way.

Wild flailing scares them—temporarily—so every time I heard one roaring in, I raised my arms and did my best impression of an overexcited Muppet. This redirected the flies to Christopher, whose flailing sent them back to me again. This unplanned game of insect-pickle worked all right on flatter bits of trail, but when we came to a flight of stairs—of which there were many—I had to clutch the railing, leaving myself at the mercy of the flies.

For the record, these flies have no mercy.

Two hours, five enormous bruises, many puncture wounds, and countless fly-bites later, we reached the base of the mountain—just as the sun broke through the clouds, transforming the sky to a brilliant summer blue.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I told Christopher, “and now we can always say we had an adventure on Mount Misen.”

“I don’t think we need any more adventures,” Christopher said drily.

Despite the bites and injuries, I really had enjoyed the hike (in retrospect, at least), although I decided I would try to skip the falling bit on future climbs. Because, to my surprise, I knew right then there would be future climbs.

The joy I felt on Misen’s summit coursed through my memory like a drug. My fear of risk had not diminished—the potential consequences of my fall made my knees go weak each time they sprang to mind—but the desire to feel that “summit high” again made me willing to accept a little risk.

Even so, I did not imagine the magnitude of the adventure that lay ahead.