Fukuroda no Taki... the adventure, the ascent, the asthma

Yesterday I went to Fukuroda no Taki with the other English teachers in Hitachi-Omiya, a bigger city about a half-hour away. The Falls have 3 or 4 major levels of spill areas where the waters collect and then overflow again. Its quite impressive. There is a stairway path that leads up the side of the mountain next to the falls. One of the beauties of Fukuroda no Taki is that, as huge as it is, its nesteled between two mountains. To go up from the base of the falls to the top of them takes about 1000 steps. Your legs are burning and shaking by the time you're just a third of the way up, and you're heaving for breath at two-thirds. For the last third, you're doubled over, with one hand pushing off your leg, and the other pulling yourself up the guard 'rail', which is a real rail for a very small portion, a thin steel pipe for most (where there IS one) and chain at other places. Then, when you're taking in the breathtaking beauty of the falls, you look and see that the path keeps going... up to the TOP of the mountain that towers to the right of the falls as you face them. You say to yourself, "Self, we've come this far, it'd be a SHAME not to go all the way." I think that may have been an 80's power-ballad. So you do it. And all the pain pays off, cause when you get to the top, you're as high as you can possibly get (give or take 100 feet) for hundreds of kilometers. And yes, you can see that far if the moisture is low.

When I got to the top the first time (long story) I looked out across the valley that Fukuroda no Taki is nestled into the corner of, and saw a beautiful bare rock face that covers the top portion of the opposite mountain. It is a few hundred feet tall and about as wide, and it has smears of red and grey from the minerals in the rock. As I was admiring it, I saw a raptor of some kind dive off the top of the mountain and plummet for a couple of hundred feet and then in an instant throw his wings open, catch the air, and sharply swoop from a straight dive to a soar straight out across the valley. It was fantastic. If you're ever in Ibaraki, go to Fukuroda no Taki. It was worth every drop of lactic acid in my muscles, and lead in my veins... or at least it felt like my blood turned to lead at around 1,500 feet. I have no clue how high up we were, but it was as high as the highest stuff in North Georgia. All their mountains are WAY steeper than ours, so its weird seeing mountains that are almost like home, but creepily different in that subltle and eerie way.

I climbed it with Blake and Annie. Richard, who is chronically afraid of heights pushed up a third of the way. I was very proud of him. He kicked his fear's butt.

So cheers. May you find an opportunity to beat your fears too. Just find something that pushes your envelope and then keep pushing back!