Thursday- 10th of July 2925
It is difficult to finish a challenge that you know you have already failed. However, I pressed on, landing in Okinawa and collecting my hired car at eleven in the morning. It was a long drive to the other side of the island and to Mount Yonaha, thus by the time I had got to grips with the car and bought some fresh food, it was 14:30 as I set off on foot up the mountain.
This was once again different terrain to anything I had seen during the week. It was a tropical forest with dense vegetation which was wet due to the rainfall overnight. Due to the low number of visitors to the mountain, the trail was unclearly marked and very overgrown, therefore I lost 10 minutes getting lost and got soaked as I had to walk through the vegetation for large chunks of the climb. Once I had reached the unimpressive summit around an hour later, there was no view as it was encircled by vegetation (pictured below)
Therefore, after five short minutes I quickly descended and made it back 50 minutes later to end the five summits challenge.
Whilst I am disappointed I failed the challenge, it was an incredible experience, with ups and downs throughout; the euphoria at the top of Fuji in comparison to being let down by a bus; the beauty of Asahi versus sitting by a harbour in Beppu sweating and tired.
There were difficulties along the way which I had to overcome whilst food access was limited and I had to survive on a mainly fruit-vegetable-Nutella-cracker diet.
Once again, a massive thank you to Now on Earth for granting me some money to aid me with this challenge and give me a truly one of a kind experience, climbing a range of mountains and meeting such an array of amazing people. Whilst the blog gives a little insight into my time climbing in Japan, there are so many exciting and quirky stories that I have left out- an experience which even a blog can’t fully cover!
(Above) Ending my challenge on a high
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