My cousin and her partner stayed at our place for a week or so and we climbed the mountain known as Tsurugi san.  I’ve been meaning to make the effort ever since I heard about Tsurugi san’s mythological associations with the Ark of the Covenant and giant snakes.  I particularly enjoyed the giant snake sequence in Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982) and the melting face scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981).

The mountain is in fact just up the road from my house.  You turn left and then just keep driving and driving and driving and driving.  So as the 660cc engine grinds us up the narrow mountain pass we begin see the view opening out beneath us.  The trees clear and suddenly we have a marvelous viewpoint and a marvelous tree oozing ‘round a rock.  It’s all wonderfully picturesque.

Behind us, our objective.  It doesn’t look so tough.  I hear people do it in high-heels.  I forgot to wear mine..
And we arrive, and we have a choice of chair-lift (at 1500 yen a head, return) or walk it from the bottom.  There was almost no discussion.  We got sticks and we started walking..
I felt a little bit of pride watching all the people rotating above our heads as we stopped for a rest.  The tinkling mood music.  It was like watching a shopping channel, a shopping channel for humans.  Or trainers, or hats or whatever you fancied.  We watched one man float past with a red chainsaw in his lap.
I was sweaty when we found a rocky outcrop and a small shrine.  The view was extraordinary.

I found the cave that leads to the heart of the mountain, which is composed of limestone apparently.  Limestone mountains usually have excellent cave structures..  I think this is where the giant snake pops out or your face melts.

After the chair lift stops, everyone has to walk.  You’ve got to choose your route.  We chose the shortest route.  The blue route.  The clouds were rolling in.  Lots more people now.  I saw some high heels…

We had our lunch at the top.  It was very relaxing and I had a snooze.  Lots of flies.  I felt like I was a cadaver.  Flies everywhere.  Dreaming.

We sprinted back down when no-one was around to laugh.

Later, we took the scenic route over some mountain pass.  The road surface was dreadful and we all got scared.  It cleared up though and the view at the top was magnificent.  It took almost 3 hours driving along micro-roads to return home.  I enjoyed a Yona Yona ale afterwards.