who writes those brochures?

there is a blatant irony in that i've spent most of my life living very close to mountains, yet i never climbed one. it wasn't before i moved to Asia that i started climbing, and thorougly hating it. nonetheless, i did it at least 3 times.

first, i spent a day climbing 6 summits in a national park in Vietnam. the brochure said it was a hard climb, but my friend argued that they definitely overstated it to make sure totally unfit people didn't participate. how wrong he was... it was very hard! as far as i was concerned, the brochure should rather have said: lots of experience needed. i nearly killed myself, but was luckily saved by a young Frenchman, who reacted very quickly as i was falling backwards onto some very sharp rocks.

a few months later, my friend invited me to climb Shiraneyama, north of Tokyo. it's funny, because at no time did i realise we were actually going to climb to the summit! and as it was foggy when we left, i couldn't see where we were headed. only once at the top did it occur to me that we had, in fact, reached the top. i gave myself a+ for paying attention.

another 6 months later, my father came to visit me and we spent a week driving around Kyushu. we came to the Aso volcanic 'range', and decided to walk up one of the summits (yes, big mistake when you consider my track record). the local brochures explained it could be done in about an hour. who writes those brochures???? it took us 45 mns to get up, and another 2 hours to get down. plus, we apparently chose the most dangerous way down (this was not labelled anywhere as being anything but easy), and again, nearly killed ourselves. i'd say my father was experienced, but he was the first one to fear for our lives. i know it sounds dramatic, but it really was bad! once at the bottom, we headed for the nearest onsen, and spent an hour relaxing there. we were so tired we couldn't even eat.

since then, i've vowed never again to climb a mountain. first of all, i don't see the point. i never felt any satisfaction finishing a climb, only sheer relief. and that really covers all my reasons...