MY HEAD IS IN THE CLOUDS

OK, SO I'M UPDATING A MONTH AND A HALF LATER INSTEAD OF A WEEK LIKE I PROMISED. SHUT IT. I DON'T WANNA HEAR A WORD. IT'S NOT LIKE YOU EVEN READ THIS ANYWAY.

SO... WHERE DID I LEAVE OFF? VOLCANO CLIMBING? OK...

CONTRARY TO MOST OF JAPAN'S ISOLATED NATURE DESTINATIONS, THE PEAK OF MOUNT KAIDON IS NOT ADORNED WITH A MULTITUDE OF CONVENIENT VENDING MACHINES. AS SUCH, I WISELY GRABBED A DRINK FROM THE MACHINE AT THE BASE OF THE VOLCANO INSTEAD, AND WAS SURPRISED TO FIND MYSELF UNDER THE WATCHFUL GAZE OF A CAGED MOUNTAIN GOAT. I BADE HIM GOOD MORNING AND BEGAN MY CLIMB.


THE TRAIL WAS MADE OF A VERY DARK MOIST SOIL, FLANKED ON BOTH SIDES BY ROWS OF FERNS. AT TIMES THE TRAIL INEXPLICABLY DESCENDED INTO A WIDE DITCH, BRINGING THE GROUND LEVEL UP TO MY SHOULDERS. I WAS FOLLOWED FOR SOME DISTANCE BY THE WORLD'S THIRD MOST PERSISTENT FLIES*, BUT OTHERWISE IT WAS QUITE PLEASANT.

DESPITE THE RELATIVELY COOL CONDITIONS UNDER THE TREES, IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE SWEAT WAS RUNNING OFF MY FACE AND WATERING THE TRAMPLED GRASS BENEATH MY FEET. THE HEAT I GENERATED FROM THE CLIMB SOON HAD WAFTS OF STEAM BILLOWING OFF MY EXPOSED HEAD AND HANDS.

TOWARDS THE UPPER HALF OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE TRAIL OF SOIL AND FERNS WAS REPLACED WITH PILES OF STONES AND BOULDERS WHICH MADE THE WAY A BIT MORE DIFFICULT TO TRAVERSE. SOME AREAS HAD SMALL WOODEN STEPS INSTALLED TO ASSIST CLIMBERS - BUT THE EFFECTS OF TIME AND WEATHER HAD ERODED THE SOIL AWAY FROM THE BASES, LEAVING BEHIND USELESS BLOCKADES ELEVATED TWO FEET OFF THE GROUND. MORE OF AN OBSTACLE THAN AN AID.



TWO HOURS AND FOUR VERTICAL KILOMETERS LATER, I REACHED THE TOP, OR AT LEAST I THINK I DID. THE TRAIL SIMPLY ENDED. THE CLOUDS PREVENTED ME FROM SEEING MUCH ON ONE SIDE, AND THE DENSE TREES PREVENTED ME FROM SEEING INTO THE CRATER ON THE OTHER.



THERE WERE A FEW RANDOM BOULDERS THAT CLIMBERS CLAIMED AS SEATS WHERE THEY ATE THEIR BOXED LUNCHES AND TEXTED THEIR FRIENDS FROM. MOST OF THEM SEEMED DISAPPOINTED BY THE CLOUDS, BUT I WAS HAPPY TO JUST SIT THERE AND BREATH IN THE MIST AS IT PASSED OVER US IN WAVES.


SO, ON THIS DAY I HAD AGED ANOTHER YEAR, BUT MY FOOLISHLY RUSHED CLIMB BACK DOWN ADDED ABOUT FIFTEEN YEARS TO MY WOBBLY KNEES. THE FOLLOWING DAYS OF GRIMACED CLIMBS UP SIMPLE STAIRCASES MADE IT A BIRTHDAY I WOULDN'T SOON FORGET.

*The world's most persistent flies being the African variety that swarm around the stained undersides of swishing animal tails, followed closely by the awful swarms that any person will be intimately familiar with if they were foolish enough to step into the deep woods of Maine during summer.**

** I was foolish enough to step into the deep woods of Maine during summer. With me was a group of less than liberal college students whose t-shirts celebrated the merits of “Tree-Hugging”, albeit with the enormous claws of logging machinery. One such student was convinced that swatting the black flies and consuming quantities of their tiny corpses would integrate the pheromones of the fly into his own scent, thus freeing him from from being a target of the toothy black clouds swarming around our heads. I still question the soundness of his logic, but for the sake of full disclosure, he seemed to be the only one not perpetually waving his arms around his skull in a futile defense against the airborne aggressors.