Climbing Mt. Fuji with my son

When my youngest son, Rory, graduated from high school, he wanted to go to Japan. I wasn’t ready for an empty nest, so I decided to take him there myself.

Our biggest goal in Japan was to climb Mt. Fuji, the majestic peak of 12, 388 feet. Mt. Fuji has been a sacred mountain for hundreds of years, with the experience of watching the sunrise from the top of the volcano prized above all. But the mountain is climbable only in the height of summer. So one July evening at 8:00 p. m., we took a bus from Hakone part-way up the mountain to Fifth Station. The night was warm, but we had escaped the oppressive heat of Tokyo.

The route began as a wide, clear path, but within minutes it had deteriorated into little more than an animal track, overgrown with roots and branches and strewn with boulders. It was too dark to see anything clearly. Rory, who was increasingly far ahead of me, had the flashlight. As I stumbled over roots and clambered up the boulders, I knew I was in trouble. Altitude, plus the heat and humidity, had me breathing like I had run a mile at top speed.

After fifteen minutes I caught up to Rory, who was waiting for me at a turning in the path.

“Hey, Mom, you okay”’ he said, real concern in his voice.

“Sure,” I wheezed, immediately taking on my familiar role of Mom– the one never in trouble, never hurt. “I’m just a little slower than you.” I tried to catch my breath, but there didn’t seem to be enough air.

Reassured, Rory asked if I minded if he went on ahead.

“Just give me the flashlight,” I said.

“Great, Mom. I’ll see you at the top.”

So he left. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Kids always leave their parents behind.

I struggled on alone. My heart pounded and my ears throbbed. At first, I worried about Rory. What if he fell without the light? What if he got lost? But as the path grew steeper, I stopped worrying about him, to worry more about myself. By the time I reached the Sixth Station, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it to the top by sunrise. Still, Rory was expecting me. I struggled onward.

The flashlight burned out around midnight. Plenty of people had begun the hike at the same time as I had, but I had no idea where any of them were. I stumbled on, apparently alone on this great pile of rock in utter darkness. Somehow I missed the trail, and found myself on a slope of loose gravel scree. I took a step forward and slipped backward two feet. I fell to my knees and crawled, aiming upward, until I found a rope strung along the trail to mark the path.

At the Seventh Station I shared some raisins and chocolate with some other hikers. One of them gave me fresh batteries. It was colder by now, so that each time I stopped, my glasses steamed over. I was drenched in sweat, and the cold breeze cut into me. My legs felt like spaghetti, limp and slow to respond to my attempts to walk. I knew I wouldn’t reach the top. Rory would just have to manage without me. Still, I’m too stubborn to give up, so I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

By 2:00 a.m. the second set of batteries burned out. A pinkish half moon rose and illuminated a barren landscape of dark rock and stunted scrub, far above the treeline. A myriad of stars glittered the sky.

The trail zigzagged back and forth in steep switchbacks. Sometimes it wound between big stone steps, while other times I crunched through rocky gravel. Occasionally a thin rope marked the trail. Mostly, the way followed a narrow path worn smooth by thousands of passing feet.

I stumbled on, refusing to quit. Dizziness made me light-headed. Sometimes I could see the flickering flashlights of other hikers or hear jingling bells on hiking sticks. Sometimes people passed me. Once in a while I passed a group sitting alongside the path, resting. Each encounter brought a brief exchange of greetings, konbanwa, sumimasen, dozo. These conversations were always brief. We had no breath to waste.

I began counting my steps to keep going. Twenty steps I promised myself, twenty steps before resting. I shuffled forward. Always up with the great empty sky arching above me and the great empty mountain embracing me. I felt like a tiny, insignificant speck in the vast universe.

Soon, I couldn’t make twenty steps anymore. I tried ten steps. Ten steps before resting. Each step brought me a few inches closer to the top.

At the Eighth Station I met three Japanese teenagers. We shared water and chocolate cookies, and discussed the merits of Star Wars in a strange mixture of Japanese and English. I thought of Rory, my own teenager, somewhere on this huge mountain, out of reach, but not really too far away. Gradually my breathing eased.

After a brief rest I continued on trembling legs. Overhead, the Big Dipper turned on the axis of the North Star. The moon crossed the sky and set in the West. In the East there grew a pale, curved glow.

As I neared the Ninth Station, the faint light of pre-dawn slowly lifted the eastern edge of night. I could hardly move forward. I took five steps, then a rest. Five more. My steps grew shorter. Two inches forward. A tiny bit closer. I began to think I could make it.

Suddenly, the trail became very crowded. Hundreds of people converged from various paths and we merged to become a long, slow-motion line, a solid snake-like queue of people inching up the mountain. Above and ahead I could see the lights of Tenth Station, the last station. With new hope, I struggled forward, reaching the station with an overwhelming sense of relief.

But it wasn’t the top. The top was another hundred yards, a hiker told me, another hour. I sat on a boulder at the edge of the station, too discouraged to move, too tired to walk another ten yards, let alone a hundred. I could watch the sunrise from here just as well as the top, couldn’t I? Rory wouldn’t mind if I didn’t show up.

I knew I was fooling myself. I didn’t want to disappoint him. Or myself. Whatever the reason, I sighed and stood up. Maybe I couldn’t get to the top, but it wouldn’t be because I had stopped trying. I took a step. Then another. A hundred yards to go. Four hundred steps. A rest between each one.

At last I could see the red torii gate. Two white lions guarded it, and the pillars were wreathed in bells. Tears of exhaustion, of joy, of relief streamed down my face as I stumbled through and rang the bells in the long-standing tradition.

There was Rory, waiting for me. He didn’t say much. He never doubted I would get there. Together we stood on the top of Mt. Fuji and watched the sun creep over the curve of the horizon and finally explode in a sudden burst of daylight.

And I knew it was enough. Rory would leave me behind many times as he went off to college and embarked on his adult life, but he would still be there, ready to share a new dawn, whenever I caught up to him