Why do people climb mountains?
"Because it's there." In the mid-1920s, British adventurer George Mallory gave this answer. This legendary figure tragically perished during his first attempt to conquer Mount Everest; the world's first person to summit Everest, New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, said, "I climb because it's a joyful thing."
On the afternoon of July 20, Japanese mountaineer Kyuuya Hoshino shared his climbing experiences with reporters. "There are 14 peaks over 8,000 meters in the world, and I've already climbed three of them, all in a solo, unsupported manner."
The Kyuuya Hoshino before us is a small-framed man: 1.62 meters tall and weighing 60 kilograms. According to a physical assessment report from a doctor, his grip strength, foot strength, lung capacity, and muscle development are all below average for adult males. Yet, this mountain-loving homebody born in the 1980s consecutively "naked climbed" the highest peaks on six continents—including North America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia—over the course of three years, then ventured into the Himalayas, eventually setting his sights on the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.
Hoshino has attempted Everest twice but had to give up near the 8,000-meter mark. At the end of August this year, he will make his third attempt on Everest. After one month of acclimatization at high altitude, he plans to officially summit in early October. His belief remains unwavering— "Ordinary as we may be, with courage, taking one step forward leads us to the realm of the gods."
Come back alive
A friend active in the Alps once wrote to Hoshino: "Come back alive, and we can climb the next mountain together."
Hoshino believes that true success means "coming back alive." "Why do I climb? Because I want to keep holding onto hope. Summiting Everest isn’t the end. The real successful person is someone who can continue challenging the next mountain. To do that, I must come back alive."
According to Hoshino, descending the mountain is actually more dangerous than ascending. Seventy percent of annual Everest climbing accidents occur during descent, mostly not due to technical issues but mental weakness, known as "summit fever."
Hoshino’s insight comes from personal experience—the closest he has ever come to death in all his years of climbing.
The coveted high peak, above 7,500 meters, is called the death zone, where oxygen concentration is only one-third that of sea level. When climbing the world’s seventh-highest peak, Dhaulagiri (8,167 meters), Hoshino suffered such severe altitude sickness that he temporarily lost his vision. Upon reaching a massive white rock gully and seeing the body of a climber wearing a purple oversized jacket (a Polish mountaineering fatality, now a landmark on the summit of this “devil peak”), he thought he had summited.
On the way down, seeing the lights of a tent from another climbing team thrilled him. Just then, his mountain boots slipped, sending his body tumbling forward. His ice axe slipped from his grasp, and he was too weak to grab it. In the darkness, his mind went blank.
"Thud," he felt a heavy blow to his neck, and the fall stopped. By the light of his headlamp, he realized he was wrapped in a small flag, 1.5 meters wide and red and yellow in color. "I don’t know who had placed it there earlier, but if I hadn’t luckily landed within this prayer flag, I wouldn’t be alive today." Since then, before every climb, Hoshino would clasp his hands and kneel to pray at the mountain’s base: "Please let me come back alive."
Once rebellious
In middle school, Hoshino went through a rebellious phase. "I was just an ordinary teenager with no ambitions." Back then, his mother was diagnosed with lung tumors that had spread throughout her body, but the aimless Hoshino deluded himself into thinking, "The tumors should be curable." It wasn’t until summer vacation of his second year of high school, when he saw his barely recognizable mother at a hospital in Sapporo, that he realized she truly was at the end of her life.
"My mother was having extreme difficulty breathing, wearing an oxygen mask, unable to open her left eye, only her right, and her body had grown even smaller." Hoshino helped remove her mask and leaned close. After a long while, she whispered almost inaudibly, "Thank you," and then passed away forever. That unbearable summer night, Hoshino cried in the corridor from midnight until dawn, and from then on made a vow: "Strive hard, never retreat. Even at the end of life, I want to be able to say thank you without regret."
"The reason I started climbing actually came from a girl." In university, Hoshino couldn’t get over his ex-girlfriend of two years, whose hobby was mountaineering. "When I saw the notice board of the mountaineering club at school, I imagined scenes of her climbing. Why would such a petite girl go to such dangerous places?" With these questions, he joined the university’s mountaineering club. As his climbing experiences grew, he indeed found his purpose.
In his junior year, he took his first overseas trip. Against the wishes of family and friends, he decided to challenge the highest peak in North America—Mount McKinley—solo and unsupported. At the summit, what stretched out before him were the colors of glaciers, rocks, and the sky. "The colors were monotonous, yet I could never tire of them. The world I had dreamed of day and night was right here!"
That scene still haunts him to this day. Faced with interviews, he can’t even think of any other hobbies—"My daily life is either climbing or preparing to climb."
The place closest to the universe
Above 8,000 meters, the distant Himalayas seem to merge with the horizon. In Hoshino’s eyes, this is the place closest to the universe, the edge of the world. In 2007, he successfully summited Cho Oyu (8,201 meters), and in 2008, he became the first Japanese person to summit Manaslu (8,163 meters).
When climbing Cho Oyu, a well-known Japanese journalist created a mountaineering video based on Hoshino’s experience, titled "Homebody Climbs Everest and Shares the Adventure." With the title "homebody," Hoshino received messages from all over Japan: "You won’t make it," "You can’t do it," and even vicious insults.
A month later, he reached the summit. This time, the messages he received were completely different. "The people who told me to 'drop dead' were now saying 'thank you.' That moment made me feel I had a greater mission—to share my dream with them and help them find theirs."
Starting in 2009, to share his adventure experiences, Hoshino began attempting live webcasts during climbs. This was a brand-new field he pioneered in the sports world, allowing more people to experience the joys, struggles, and gratitude of achieving dreams alongside him.
In fact, challenging the world’s highest peaks is not only physically demanding but also costly. The climbing permit for Everest costs 1.2 million yen (about 100,000 RMB) per person; climbing Vinson Massif in Antarctica requires taking a Chilean military aircraft, which cost Hoshino 4.5 million yen (about 400,000 RMB).
As for live broadcasting from Everest, due to the complex process and high equipment requirements, it is an even greater expense. From 2007 to the present, Hoshino has been commuting weekly between Sapporo and Tokyo, dealing daily with major websites, advertising agencies, suppliers, and radio stations. He personally writes proposals, pitches to companies and media, and brings sponsors on board to build his team. Once funding was secured, in 2009, he made his first attempt to "share" his adventure experience.
It’s a massive undertaking: first, carrying a 4-kilogram "booster" (video transmitter) up to 8,000 meters. Due to the huge altitude difference, direct video transmission from base camp to 8,000 meters is impossible. Four members of Hoshino
“Famous mountaineers have always wanted to convey the feeling of reaching the summit through words, but the texture of the air when you’re actually there is something that’s very hard to understand or experience without being on the spot.” During his challenge to climb Dhaulagiri, Kuriki and his team successfully live-streamed the expedition. In the footage, the snow glows with an eerie light; continuous avalanches roar down like ferocious floods, swallowing everything in their path; countless glacier crevasses at their feet, and the stunning diamond dust of fine snow under the sunlight are all laid bare before viewers. “Under this blue sky, no matter where you are, you are undergoing a test—how much light will you emit, how much of your life will you burn, as you strive to achieve something in this lifetime.”
For Kirishima, inspiring disheartened young people to find the courage to challenge life is the most important thing he wants to achieve beyond being a mountaineer. In his autobiography "The Courage to Take One Step Forward," he hopes to share with everyone the philosophy the mountains have taught him: "Climbing to a place where humans cannot survive, the Earth—lonely and spinning in the universe—finally appears vividly before my eyes. I want to tell everyone that when you stand at the edge of death and look back, you realize how precious life truly is."