A photo exhibition celebrating a Mie Prefecture man who climbed mountains for nearly 10,000 days straight, and who only stopped because he died last year, opened earlier this month at the Mont-Bell outdoor and climbing goods store in Nagoya.
Narao Higashiura, who lived in Ise, set off on his epic challenge at age 59 but passed away at the end of 2011 at age 86. While he was ultimately forced to abandon his quest last June — only 262 days short of his goal — he set a new record by scaling peaks for 9,738 days in a row, or 27 years straight.
Higashiura retired from a printing company in 1984 and was profoundly influenced by the Buddhist Tendai sect's extremely grueling, 1,000-day circumambulation, one of its hardest programs.