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  1. #1
    may your tracks be long quicktoez's Avatar
    Join Date
    01-03-2007
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    Berlin, CT
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    59
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    Default Why the mountains mean so much to me

    I have had much personal life challenges. My best friend 38 passed away, the woman I loved left me and my career began to greatly conflict with my personal values.
    My now x-wife was born and raised in Japan and was from great wealth. When I said I wanted to climb Mt. Fuji, at night and alone just so I could see the sun rise you could just imagine the reaction and as I hiked that night I surprised many I encountered but for me this was spiritual and it is a casual kind of Mecca for Japanese Buddhists. It took me over two days round trip with the train travel and it was one of the hardest hikes I have done.
    The point is my wife and my family really tried to stop me form doing this especial alone but my father-in-law who spoke no English the day I left gave me his hiking pole and told me in English. “I hike 3 time but to old now” I found out latter that 6 generations of his family hiked Fuji with this pole and they told me later that now 7 generations had hikes Fuji.
    This man who has lived on the same land for 500 years and his family farmed it since their Samurai clan was defeated and fled Kyoto, owns massive land (is worth millions) and the section of town he lives in is signified buy his family name took more meaning from my personal quest (I had no idea this was significant to him until he gave me the stick) and my interest in this centuries old Japanese tradition than all his wealth and importance.
    I formed a bond with this man because this shared my inner self. We formed a bond that will last a lifetime and even though after 7 years his daughter left me for another he told me I will always be family. I will one day return to Japan and take grandson to the top of Fuji.
    We both cried the day I got back from Fuji and retuned the staff and if you know about the Japanese they don’t show emotion.
    I think my hike on the AT will never have the meaning that climbing Fuji did, but when I decided to climb Fuji I didn’t think it had much meaning either. I took this mans daughter to a land he really didn’t like or trust and in the end I lost her because I found myself in a land I didn’t understand by climbing a mountain and being open to new experiences. She embraced the West and I the East and we grew apart.
    I was married Shinto and am still Buddhist, I was accepted unconditionally into this religion far more than a protestant would be buy a Catholic wedding (just an example). My in-laws were always nice but the day I returned from Fuji was the day I became family.
    The bond was because I was driven to climb the mountain and wanted the spiritual experience, no one ever suggested the climb I just wanted to do it one day and that’s what made it real. I am in person turmoil these days, I hope to find myself on the trail and few would understand.
    I think you do and though you would though you would appreciate this piece of my life. The mountains mean a lot to people like us but what we find in them is never what we look for. So I go to find myself and this is what the people around me don’t understand.

  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    02-14-2006
    Location
    The wilds of Maine
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    2,983

    Default

    Quicktoez,
    Great story, impressive photo gallery too!
    It's in the mountains and the hinterlands where i find an inner peace, nature has a way of doing that for me. People who don't get OUT THERE will likely not ever know this feeling like many of us here do. So be it. I don't really care anymore what anyone around me thinks of my backcountry ramblings, they don't know what they've missed IMO.
    I had the opportunity to live within a mile of a remote piece of AT for a couple years once upon a time and i beat that trail to death in both directions. Best years of my life despite the personal issues that made me retreat there.
    See you on the trail
    woodsy
    WALK ON

  3. #3
    Getting out as much as I can..which is never enough. :) Mags's Avatar
    Join Date
    03-15-2004
    Location
    Colorado Plateau
    Age
    49
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    11,002

    Default

    Thanks for sharing. The story about your father-in-law giving you this decades old (centuries old?) stick made me catch my breath.

    He really gave you something that has no monetary value..and is priceless beyond all money.

    Good stuff.
    Paul "Mags" Magnanti
    http://pmags.com
    Twitter: @pmagsco
    Facebook: pmagsblog

    The true harvest of my life is intangible...a little stardust caught,a portion of the rainbow I have clutched -Thoreau

  4. #4

    Default Shinto and Mountains

    Excellent account of your experinece with Mount Fuji. I had a similar experience atop 10'000' Haleakala on Maui in 2000. When that sun rose in the biting cold I felt as if I was the first person in the world to see it that day - even though by date standards I was one of the last, from my perspective, no one had seen it yet.
    I was in Hawaii installing/ managing a manufacturing facility and was included in the Shinto blessing of the building. The most spiritually captivating religious experience of my life.
    After two years of partial responsibility for damaging such a viscerally beautiful land, I too decided to make changes in my life.
    By last year I was on the trail SOBO. I made it to Dalton Mass. Within a couple weeks I knew that I would return to finish the trail this year. About a minute after making that decision I knew that I would not go to finish but to start again from Katahdin. My reason?
    I can't miss those beautiful Mountains!!!!!!

  5. #5
    Registered User Trailers's Avatar
    Join Date
    03-18-2007
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    The dungeons of whiteblaze
    Age
    40
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    36

    Default

    cool man

    damn, i cant believe i couldnt climb fuji.... im absolutly gutted.

    will you believe it but i lived in Fuji City until a couple of months ago. But had to return because of health problems. oh well, dont think thatll happen now! I only arrived in japan after the climbing season so....

    bugger

    on your way to mt fuji, you will have passed near my apt.

  6. #6
    Registered User
    Join Date
    05-11-2004
    Location
    way down south
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    65
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    926

    Default

    Very moving story. All of us who love the mountains can appreciate your words and emotions. Thanks for sharing.

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