“It’s a sun pillar,” Yama-san says.
“A portal?” Tim Eddy replies.
“A pillar,” Shark Boy confirms. 

Maybe you’ve seen a sun dog before, the atmospheric interaction between frozen water crystals and low-angle sun that produces ethereal columns of effervescent light. This isn’t one of them. This is something grander in scale. It dwarfs the lower slopes of Asahidake, the distant peaks of Daisetsuzan National Park. Behind us, Hokkaido’s tallest mountain crackles and roars and belches steam thousands of feet into the air, as it has all day under cold blue skies. The pillar beckons above a bank of low clouds. Yama will show us the way…

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A pillar or a portal? Afternoon sunlight finds a hole in the clouds and spreads warmth on the trees below.