Cloud Catcher Mountain
Every year in August, I spend one night on Kumotoriyama – Cloud Catcher Mountain. It’s a tradition I started three years ago as a way to say goodbye to summer, and to mark the beginning of another mad rush to the end of another year.
It’s rare for me to run into other hikers during this ritual. This is partly by design. The route I take is the first trail opened on Cloud Catcher, the Fumida Trail, and it’s a much more challenging hike than the main trail. If the added challenge weren’t enough to deter would-be hikers, August is also a wet time in the Okutama area. The rain hasn’t shown me mercy on any of the three hikes I’ve done in as many years.
Solitude is an important part of the experience for me. I set out from the Higashi Nippara bus stop and make my way up the paved and winding path to the Fumida Trailhead. I entertain myself for the first few miles, humming American folk music and having conversations with the river and the birds. Asphalt becomes gravel, gravel becomes soil. The smell of civilization gives way to the sweet bouquet of forest — leaves composting under my feet, wet bark bleeding sap, mold and mud and mushroom.
After entering the Fumida Trailhead, the long ascent steepens. Utsukushii Buna-zaka, the Hill of Beautiful Beech Trees. It’s here that I invite myself to silence and turn my attention inward. There’s something about the forest that, for me, bestows an uncanny power to unpack and process emotional baggage. It frees my mind from the veneer of distractions and routines that would otherwise conceal wounds and weakness. It challenges me to depend on myself, even as I explore those pieces of me that make me uncomfortable or that I just don’t like. In other words, the forest offers space for self-acceptance.
The ascent is ruthless. Few markers designate this unbeaten path. At times, my compass is my only guide through three trees. It’s always here that the rains begin, and this year presented no deviation from that pattern.
The hill terminates at a beautiful clearing, which is where I set up for lunch. The air is thin and clean at more than a mile high. As I reached the clearing, the clouds parted and sun warmed my wet face. A thick soup nourishes my tired body and a handful of almonds and fruit return energy to my shaking legs. I feel my pulse in my fingers and toes.
With the most challenging ascent behind me, I train my feet on the last leg of the trail. The journey from the clearing to the summit rises and falls playfully over just two or three miles. It’s lined by flora native to the Japanese highlands, like the nikkokisuge. Knee-high blades of highland grass dry themselves on my pants and shoes.
I arrived at the summit around 16:30. At 6,600 feet, I found myself far above a sea of clouds that blanketed the surrounds. Another pilgrimage behind me.
That night, I slept a short walk from the summit in the Kumotori Lodge. A mighty thunderstorm swallowed Cloud Catcher. Under pounding rain and shaken by booming thunder, I processed my thoughts from the trail.
When I first hiked Cloud Catcher in 2016, I wasn’t intending to turn the trek into an annual pilgrimage. I was just looking for an escape from the city. On this third trip, I encountered pieces of myself that I had left behind on previous hikes. The weight of three years burdened my pack as I filled it with observations about how my life has changed since that first hike. How I’ve changed.
The accumulated memories of these three hikes brought me back to a conversation I’ve been having with myself more often in recent months about the value of time. Since I moved to Tokyo, I’ve spent so many of my days in an office where it’s hard to find meaning. On weekends, too, the smallest distractions frustrate me because so great is the pressure to enjoy what little time I’m given outside an office. Normally, I would welcome the mistake of taking the wrong exit on a highway, for example, as an opportunity to see another side of beautiful Japan. Instead, the minutes such an unintended detour might steal from time at my destination awaken this silly, embarrassing anger in me.
As I looked reflected on my notes from previous hikes, this impatient part of me comes through. I dream about emancipation from the things that keep me from opening myself to adventure. As the rain quickens and slows, quickens and slows in a cryptic pattern of its own design, I think about what I would be doing, and the things I would be creating, if I only had the time.
