Never Too Old
If you have ever thought or said the words, “I’m too old for that,” you clearly have not met Kokichi Akuzawa.
On August 5, 2025, Akuzawa reached the summit of Japan’s Mount Fuji at the age of 102 years old, becoming the oldest person on record to climb the country’s tallest mountain.
Mount Fuji rises 12,388 feet above sea level, and the climb gains roughly 5,800 feet in elevation. Temperatures drop sharply near the summit, where the thinner air offers less oxygen with every step.
Akuzawa was no stranger to the climb. In fact, he had climbed Mount Fuji six years earlier, at age 96, and set a Guinness World Record that he later broke at age 102. Akuzawa began climbing as a teenager and eventually became honorary chairman of the Gunma Mountaineering Club. Even as he entered his late 90s, he continued climbing almost every week.
The years between his two Fuji ascents, however, had taken a toll. Akuzawa experienced heart failure, shingles, and a serious fall that required stitches. Before attempting Fuji again, he trained for three months, rising at 5 a.m. each morning to walk for an hour and climbing smaller mountains whenever he could.
His group began the ascent on August 3 and spread the journey across three days, sleeping for two nights in huts along the trail. Akuzawa climbed with his 70-year-old daughter Motoe, his granddaughter, his granddaughter’s husband, and four friends from his local mountaineering club.
By the third day, Akuzawa acknowledged that his strength was fading: “I was really tempted to give up halfway through,” he later said. “Reaching the summit was tough, but my friends encouraged me.”
Motoe urged him to continue one step at a time. His companions adjusted their pace and lent him their strength, and at 11 a.m. August 5, Akuzawa finally stood at the summit.
Akuzawa once preferred climbing alone, but age gradually taught him to accept the support of others. He has said that the friendships formed along the trail mattered as much as the view from the top: “Intelligence didn’t matter up there,” he explained. “We were all on equal footing and moved forward together.”
“Let us run with perseverance the race that lies before us,” Hebrews 12:1 reminds us -- regardless of age.
While perseverance is personal, it is rarely solitary. God gives us strength through prayer, through hope, and often through the faithful people who walk beside us when our own strength begins to fail. Whatever mountain lies before you this week, may God give you courage for the next step and faithful companions for the climb.