I wrote about this book on my blog many years ago. At one point the blog developed a serious problem and went down. A friend helped restore it, but some articles from a certain period were lost forever. This piece was among them.
I did not particularly regret losing old dermatology articles, but the mountain essays stayed with me. Eventually I felt compelled to read the book again and recreate the article here.
According to Wikipedia, Mitsuhiko Yoshino was:
Born November 8, 1931 – died February 5, 2012.
A Japanese mountaineer, founding member of RCC II, and painter. Born in Nippori, Arakawa Ward, Tokyo. Member of the Alm Club.
At age seventeen, while a second-year student at Waseda Junior High School, he was involved in an accident on Mount Aka in 1948 and lost all the toes on both feet to frostbite. Yet through extraordinary determination he continued climbing. In March 1957 he achieved the first winter ascent of the frontal wall of the Fourth Peak of Mount Maehotaka, among many other pioneering climbs.
In 1963, together with Daihachi Okura, he became the first Japanese climber to attempt the north face of the Eiger North Face.
In 1965, with Tsuneaki Watanabe, he completed the first Japanese ascent of the north face of the Matterhorn, opening the way for Japanese climbers on the great Alpine walls.
He also served as the model for the protagonist of Eikō no Ganpeki (Glory of Walls) byJiro Nitta.
At the same time, he was active as a painter.
He died of heart failure in 2012 at the age of eighty.
In the preface to the 1972 edition, Yoshino wrote:
“Including this one, I have written six books, but The Sound of Mountain Boots remains especially dear to me because it was my first publication and because it was written during the years from my late teens into my twenties, when I climbed mountains with all my strength, thought deeply, wrote, and painted. The mountains upon which I staked my youth return vividly to me…”
He also reflected on the spirit of climbing in those days:
“At that time in Japan, unclimbed rock walls within the country had largely been exhausted, and mountaineering was shifting toward winter ascents. There were a few expeditions to the Himalayas, but there was nothing like today’s variation routes. Climbers still chose routes that ‘even horses could climb.’
In such an era, attempting first ascents of unclimbed winter walls was viewed with suspicion. We were young and proud in our twenties, and we strongly rebelled against the older generation and their traditional ideas. Our actions in the mountains felt like the only true form of action…”
As Yoshino himself admits, the book contains some youthful arrogance, naïveté, and unevenness in style. Yet the passion for mountains that bursts from its pages is overwhelming. The sense of immediacy is so strong that the reader feels drawn directly into the scene.
I cannot possibly describe all of my impressions, but I would like to introduce a few passages.
Snow and Rock — The Accident in the Yatsugatake
On December 19, 1948, Yoshino and his close friend Hachimaki departed from Matsubarako Station and headed toward Honzawa Onsen via Inago. They spent the night around an irori hearth with hunters. The next day they aimed for Mount Iō.
The hunters warned them to climb only Iō and return, but the weather was good and they pressed onward. By afternoon the wind intensified. They considered turning back, yet believed they could reach the stone hut on Mount Aka before dark.
They never made it.
Without a tent or sleeping bags, they bivouacked on a narrow ridge near Arasawa Fudō, wrapped only in coats and blankets.
On the 21st, in a raging blizzard, they finally reached the hut and then fought their way to the summit of Akadake. From there they aimed for Mount Gongen, believing they could descend safely to Kobuchizawa.
But deep snow and whiteout conditions erased the trail.
The two argued: Hachimaki insisted on continuing, while Yoshino demanded they retreat to the hut. Eventually they turned back. Soon after, Hachimaki collapsed from exhaustion.
On December 23, Yoshino attempted to carry him, but could manage only a few steps.
At 8 p.m., Hachimaki whispered, “It hurts.”
Those were his final words.
Winter Alone at Tokusawa
Two years later, Yoshino entered Tokusawa as a winter caretaker, despite his crippled feet.
He later wrote:
“The hardest part of six months alone in the mountains was always the evening. I would sit gazing at the snowy peaks, remembering friends who had died in the mountains and praying for them. As the sun sank behind Maehotaka, the world instantly turned to darkness…”
And at the end of that long winter:
“At last spring arrived. The snow began to melt. The peaks of Hotaka glowed crimson morning and evening. I wandered snowy forests, climbed mountains of ice and rock, crossed frozen rivers and valleys… and finally descended back toward the world below.”
Longing for the Ice Wall — The Fourth Peak of Maehotaka
The winter ascent of the frontal wall of the Fourth Peak of Mount Maehotaka was considered one of the great unsolved problems of Japanese mountaineering.
Yoshino had planned the climb with his friend Kitamura, but Kitamura died in a rappelling accident before the attempt.
Soon afterward, Yoshino joined a powerful Nagoya-based expedition team that included Mitsumasa Takada, later famous for pioneering climbs on the Eiger north face.
After days trapped in a tent by storms, they attacked the wall through deep snow and terrible weather. Yoshino later recalled moments when his body dangled helplessly in space and his companions hauled him upward through sheer determination.
The Final Bastion — The Central Ridge of Kitadake Buttress
The great buttress of Mount Kita rises six hundred meters above Ōkabasawa. Though climbed before the war, its winter central ridge was long believed impossible.
In January 1957, Yoshino and a mixed party finally succeeded.
At one overhang his crampon snagged, his bootlace came undone, and his boot nearly fell off, hanging only by the thin cord of the overshoe. Somehow he forced himself over the obstacle.
The entire team eventually stood on the summit.
The Fantastical Rock Wall — Tsurugi Chinne
In March 1958, Yoshino set his sights on the last of Japan’s “three great ice and snow walls”: the frontal wall of Tsurugi Chinne.
Together with the gifted climber Yoshio and a younger partner named Tanaka, he completed the ascent through chimneys, ice runnels, and overhanging rock.
Yet Yoshino wrote that rather than satisfaction, what he felt afterward was an even greater hunger for the next wall.
The book is filled not only with climbing records but also with dreams, reflections, sketches, and paintings rendered in Yoshino’s distinctive style. No matter how many times I reread it, I discover something new.
At times his writing even recalls Tetsuno Ueda, whom Yoshino deeply admired.
On the other hand, essays such as “Gonbee and the Avalanche — The Time I Roped Up with a Dog” reveal his warm humor: stories of climbing snowy ridges with a stray dog from Tokusawa and narrowly surviving avalanches together.
This is a youthful mountain book, almost an illustrated memoir of adolescence. Later Yoshino would go on to become one of the pioneers of Japanese climbing in the European Alps, exactly as Wikipedia records. Yet The Sound of Mountain Boots remains, above all, the passionate testimony of a young climber utterly devoted to the mountains.
Many years ago, my wife and I attended an exhibition—or perhaps a sales event—of Yoshino’s paintings in Tokyo.
By then he was already elderly, gentle and grandfatherly in appearance, welcoming us with a warm smile beside his wife.
Of course I had already read The Sound of Mountain Boots and Eikō no Ganpeki. I also remembered meeting him years earlier at a climbing seminar at Mitsutōge, where he was one of the instructors. I still remember him driving briskly up the mountain road in a Suzuki Jimny.
Yet perhaps because I was nervous, I hardly spoke with him about mountains at all. We purchased several small paintings and returned home.
Still, he kindly agreed to take a photograph with me.
For that, I remain grateful.
Even now, I sometimes regret not speaking with him more deeply that day.
And yet the paintings hanging on the staircase in my home greet me morning and evening. From time to time, they make me suddenly want to open The Sound of Mountain Boots once again.
Incidentally, the nostalgic mountain song “Farewell, Hotaka” was also written by Yoshino himself, with music composed by Yuji Koseki.
It carries all of his love for the Hotaka mountains.
Farewell, Hotaka
Farewell, Hotaka — until the day I return,
Crimson clouds drift over Okuhotaka.
I turn to look once more as it fades away,
And in my eyes remains the Jumdarum.
Farewell, Takidani — until the day I return,
The snowy trail stretches toward Kitahotaka.
I turn to look once more as it fades away,
And in my eyes remains Mount Yari.
Farewell, Karasawa — until the day I return,
The snowy road descends toward Yokoo.
I turn to look once more as it fades away,
And in my eyes remains Byōbu Rock.
Farewell, Dakesawa — until the day I return,
Leaving Maehotaka behind, toward Kappa Bridge.
I turn to look once more as it fades away,
And in my eyes remains Tatami Rock.
Climbing the rocky pinnacles of Tsurugi through lingering snow,
walking slowly across the snows of Yatsugatake,
overcoming the overhangs of the rock walls of Takidani —
the memories of those youthful days, spent among such mountains,
remain forever etched in my mind.
January 11, 2009
Mitsuhiko Yoshino
English version prepared with AI assistance
(Originally written in Japanese)
Japanese version:
https://hifika-otibohiroi.net/山靴の音ー芳野満彦/