Still Traveling in Search of Surprises

—

I remember last time we sat down and talked with you about the dangers of mountains, we’d mentioned the book, The Summit of the Gods.

Ishikawa

The novel by Baku Yumemakura, right? Yeah, I read that.

—

I haven’t read the novel, but I did read the manga adaptation by Jiro Taniguchi. I remember being genuinely shaken by how frightening things can be in mountainclimbing.

Ishikawa

It really is frightening. Books about mountains written by people who haven’t experienced it firsthand can be pretty ridiculous and off-putting, but I couldn’t believe how realistically that novel portrayed everything. I don’t think Baku ever personally climbed mountains himself, but it’s amazing to see how terrifying he portrays the reality of the mountains just by having researched it and talking with climbers.

—

You read that book while on Everest, right?

Ishikawa

Yes, it’s amazing you remember that.

—

Last time you told us that even though you were reading the book amid a snowstorm on Mount Everest, the world inside the book was much scarier. It was a very Ishikawa-like thing to say.

Ishikawa

Oh, but it was true!

—

Being the youngest person to ever climb the highest peaks in all seven continents is a really easy gateway toward impressing people. But there’s another part of you that’s very interesting, but doesn’t get across to people nearly so easily.

Ishikawa

Oh, you think I’m interesting?

—

Almost all children dream of becoming adventurers at one time or another, but very few of them carry that forward to adulthood and become world travelers. So even though we can see these incredible feats you’ve performed, there’s something interesting about the easygoing approach you take to them.

Ishikawa

I’m not so sure about that.

—

Look at it this way: You’re just barely protected from the howling, snowswept winds of Mount Everest, but the thing you’re afraid of is the novel you’re reading. That’s an amazing sensation—even if the novel really is scarier, it’s a very blunt thing to say about howling winds on the world’s highest mountain.

Ishikawa

Well . . . [Laughs] Maybe people would rather hear that the real-life Mount Everest is scarier, but that’s how scary The Summit of the Gods was.

—

I watched a video you took from the top of Mount Everest, and that, too, was classic Ishikawa. It was such an exciting and uplifting moment, but all you said was, “Wow, it’s been 10 years. This is great. I guess I’ll head down now.” [Laughs]

Ishikawa

I was giddy on the inside, though.

—

I’m sure the summit is not a place you can stay for long.

Ishikawa

Yeah, about 10 minutes max. And even if you make it to the top, you can’t get too elated yet, because you still have to make it all the way back down.

—

How long did you spend on the summit?

Ishikawa

About seven or eight minutes. But when I climbed Makalu, which was nearby, we arrived in the middle of the night, so we waited just below the summit for about an hour.

—

Waiting for the sun to rise?

Ishikawa

I spent the time kicking at the snow to keep blood circulating all the way to my toes. While we waited there, the Sherpa asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

—

At 8,400 meters (28,000 feet)?

Ishikawa

Yes.

—

At that altitude, you were somehow carrying on a conversation that you might hear every night at an old restaurant.

Ishikawa

He didn’t have to ask, of course, but to hear him say, “Do you mind if I smoke?” up there really struck me.

—

Is a cigarette really the kind of thing you should carry up a mountain?

Ishikawa

No way. You only have four pockets; you have to be so strict about what you bring with you. I take a radio, a camera, and a 500 ml bottle, and I try to keep everything as light as possible.

—

Yeah.

Ishikawa

Cigarettes are the first thing you leave behind. But there was our Sherpa—his name was Basan—looking out over Makalu and smoking one like it was the best thing he’d ever had.

—

I don’t smoke, but I’m sure it was great.

Ishikawa

And then he flicked the cigarette butt into the snow.

—

Wow.

Ishikawa

Even now I can clearly see that tiny cigarette butt as it was swept away toward Tibet.

—

I’m not sure how to explain it, but hearing you talk so happily about your memories atop Makalu gets at part of what makes you so interesting.

Ishikawa

Do you think so?

—

I’m sure you’ve eaten all manner of food while abroad, but what is the grossest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Ishikawa

This conversation took a sudden turn! [Laughs] In all my travels I’ve never met anyone with a less discerning palate than my own. It’s like I have no sense of taste; I can basically eat anything.

—

What a convenient talent! [Laughs]

Ishikawa

I can go to the most crowded ramen place in the city, or I can duck into an empty one in a back alley; either way it’s just ramen to me. Although—when I was 20 I studied wayfinding in Micronesia, and I was served some kind of field ration while riding in a canoe. For a moment, there, I thought, “Oh no—I can’t finish this.”

—

It was inedible even for you.

Ishikawa

I’ve walked all over the world these last 20 years, and I’ve eaten every strange food I’ve been presented. But that one was tough.

—

What exactly was it?

Ishikawa

How can I describe it? It was fermented, and it smelled like rotten potatoes. It was like chewing on sour rubber.

—

Just hearing you describe it is unappetizing.

Ishikawa

I just chewed on it forever, but it never broke down and the taste never went away. But that’s the only food that’s ever given me trouble.

—

Of all your stories that I’ve heard, the best was the one about the “drifting camera.”

Ishikawa

Ah, yes.

—

Could you explain it, for anyone who hasn’t heard it already?

Ishikawa

This was back in 2004. I was on a journey to cross the Pacific in a hot air balloon with Michio Kanda, a balloonist. We were about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Japan when we realized we didn’t have enough fuel, so we had to ditch in the ocean.

—

You say that so casually, but you’re talking about an emergency water landing in the middle of the rough, stormy waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Ishikawa

We were tossed around by the waves for hours in a gondola made from the kind of water tank you find on top of apartment buildings. I was so seasick I was throwing up; it was so bad. Fortunately, we were picked up by a Panamanian cargo ship, and I made it back to Japan in one piece.

—

There’s no telling how many times that gondola circled the earth in the four-and-a-half years following that incident, but eventually it washed up on the shores of Akusekijima.

Ishikawa

I got a shocking phone call—someone had found my gear inside the gondola and took the trouble to contact me.

—

Among other things, they found your old SLR, covered in rust. The “drifting camera.”

Ishikawa

Yeah. Akusekijima is one of the Tokara islands, off the coast of Kagoshima. I’ve been there several times to observe solar eclipses.

—

We were so moved by the story of your camera drifting around the world for four-and-a-half years and returning to a tiny Japanese island you’ve spent time on that we asked if we could display it at our Hatarakitai-ten career exhibit.

Ishikawa

I remember that.

—

You graciously allowed us to display it.

Ishikawa

Right.

—

But here’s where it gets interesting. On the morning of the exhibit, you called us and said, “The camera is definitely somewhere in my house, but I can’t find it.”

Ishikawa

Yeah . . . [Laughs]

—

[Laughs] But you were leaving to cover a story in Tohoku that day, so you said you’d find it after you got back home and give us a call. So we put a placeholder for the camera in our exhibit. We waited and waited, but we never heard back from you.

Ishikawa

Ah . . .

—

In the middle of the night, about three days before the exhibit closed, I went to your house to help look for it, but we couldn’t find it.

Ishikawa

I remember that night.

—

So I thought, “Wow, this camera made it back to him after four-and-a-half years floating across the Pacific Ocean, and now he’s lost it in his own house.”

Ishikawa

I see. [Laughs] But it surfaced in the end—it turned up in the warehouse at Shueisha.

—

Yeah! You called us immediately and said, “I finally found the camera!” But the exhibit was already over.

Ishikawa

Well . . . I remember being so relieved when I realized I hadn’t lost it. So . . . I was a bit carried away.

2016-12-06-Tue

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