Discussing Mount Hayachine, ethnologist Kunio Yanagita observed that it stood on, "a somewhat different plane from the normal world." This could be a description of mountains in general, a landscape where we may experience nature in the raw, and even at times, a numinous presence.

One Hundred Mountains of Japan, by Kyuya Fukada, Translated by Martin Hood.
246 pages
University of Hawaii Press, Nonfiction.