Mountaineering in Mount Ishizuchi

Ishizuchi is the highest peak in western Japan at 1,982 metres and one of the country's seven sacred mountains, first climbed in the seventh century by the founder of Shugendō and still walked by white-robed pilgrims in their thousands each July. There is a perfectly good bypass path to the top, and no shame in taking it.

The alternative is the reason to come. Sets of massive iron chains — kusari — hang down near-vertical rock, the last and longest around sixty-eight metres at close to eighty degrees, and you haul yourself up them hand over hand exactly as pilgrims have for centuries. It is pure grip and upper-body work, the most physical hour on this whole list, with a ropeway to spare your legs on the lower approach.

The chains are closed in winter and can be shut in the wet. Come in spring or autumn, when the rock is dry and the crowds of the mountain-opening festival have thinned.

Chains are closed in winter and can be shut in wet conditions. A ropeway covers the lower approach.