With my Mt. Fujikura video I realised that I’ve been trying to show only good parts about the mountains I go to, and forgo the bad parts. By that I mean if you’ve read about all the drama that went on when we climbed Mt. Kumanonagamine, and were wondering where the video was, I actually stopped filming because I thought we had gone completely the wrong way.

And I was right, we were on an old and rundown trail, but I didn’t want to show the mountain as a ‘bad’ place, so I stopped filming.

To be honest, Mt. Fujikura wasn’t that interesting of a mountain overall when you compare it to other nearby peaks like Mt. Atsumi and Mt. Arakura. But my first draft of the video would seem to show otherwise.

I realized, a bit too late however, that not everything is going to go smoothly, but that that is what makes things interesting. Sure it would be cool to have a perfect day of hiking in a video, but a bit of drama would make it a lot more engaging, and there has been a bit of drama that I haven’t gotten on film.

Looking back, this seems dishonest, and I’m going to try and do a better job of capturing both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sides of my hikes from now on. If you think about it, it’s all relative. ‘Good’ or ‘bad’, it’s all the same mountain.

(Given the chance though, I think I would climb Mt. Fujikura again, next time from the Futakuchi trail).