PokeEarn Interview Yuji Emoto | PokeEarn Official Site | PokeEarn

Emoto works as a mountain guide, based mainly in Japan in winter and France in summer. He explains his reason for having multiple bases like this.

"It's to enjoy the mountains to the fullest. I believe Japan's snow is the best in the world, so in winter I offer activities centered on skiing in Japan and enjoy it myself. In summer there's more to enjoy in the Alps, so I base myself in Chamonix, the town at the foot of Mont Blanc."

Although he went to France to study as an alpine ski racer in high school, an injury forced him to give up his competitive career. Afterward, he earned national qualifications in France and became a ski instructor. It was also during this period that he became absorbed in mountaineering and climbing.

"With just skiing, you can only be involved with the mountains in winter. By also obtaining the national mountaineering-guide qualification, I was able to establish the style I still keep today of being involved with the mountains throughout the year."

In addition, he now also holds a paragliding-instructor qualification, and his first encounter with it was apparently a shock.

"About ten years ago, when I summited Mont Blanc as a guide, a paraglider came flying up from below on a thermal all the way to the summit. They celebrated happily together, and after a while they flew off again down to the town at the foot of the mountain. We had walked all the way up here and were now facing an eight-hour descent, while they got down in five or ten minutes (laughs). It was a shock, and honestly I felt frustrated that I didn't have this way of playing myself."

At the time, hike-and-fly, which combined mountaineering and paragliding, was just beginning to attract attention on the European mountain scene. Emoto immediately began paragliding training and became captivated by its appeal.

"When I'm climbing, finding a small hold on the rock, or a route that lets you climb a 1,000-meter wall, feels to me like a miracle of nature. Paragliding, riding thermals to fly high and far, is a true miracle of nature too, because it involves the air, the sun that warms it, and the terrain of the mountains. The airflow changes with the position of the sun and the ridgeline, and the wind direction reverses between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, so I feel like I'm enjoying the earth as a field on a much larger scale."

Why did Emoto, who was originally a ski racer, keep adding new ways of engaging with the mountains one after another, such as mountaineering, climbing, ice climbing, trail running, and paragliding?

"I'm the type who throws myself into a hard challenge. Back when I was obsessed with climbing, the 5.14a grade^*I reached that level. But perfecting it any further felt too austere for me, so I came to want to spend my body and time on other ways of enjoying the mountains.
＊5.14a: a grade indicating a near-top difficulty level in climbing.

"The mountains change every day. Today the snow is good, so I ski; today the wind is good, so I fly with the paraglider. I call a day when I can fully enjoy the mountain as it is that day 'the best day,' and the more things I can do, the more of those best days I have."

Apart from his guiding work, Emoto has taken on personal challenges almost every year, visiting Alaska to ski and Baffin Island in Canada to climb. After discovering paragliding, competing in the "Red Bull X-Alps," called the world's toughest adventure race, became his top goal.

"It wasn't that I wanted to compete for rankings like in my ski-racing days. I've been involved with the Alps ever since I came to France in my teens, but I still haven't managed to grasp the whole of them. I thought that climbing this vast field on my own two feet and then circling it with a paraglider on my back would be the most exciting thing of all."

Only the world's top athletes are invited to this event, and its completion rate is said to be 6%. That he was invited for the first time at age 46 with only nine years of paragliding experience is astonishing in itself, but he actually went on to finish the race.

"A strategy that didn't rely on luck paid off. Even if there was a spot where a thermal was likely to form if I waited three hours, if I couldn't fly at that moment, I walked. When I met an airflow I could fly on, I flew. I think it was by steadily pressing on like that that I was able to finish. Above all, the biggest reward was being able to take on the Alps by mobilizing all of my skills and experience."